IT SEEMS for everyone outside of Scotland, the country still appears to be some form of progressive utopia that is putting England’s political leaders to shame. For all of us living in Scotland, we wish the utopia were true.

A blog posted by Novara Media, proclaiming Scotland to have better public services and lower council tax, was rightly met with amusement across the Scottish left. 

It came only a week after the Scottish government published its Spending Review which set out plans to cut anywhere between 17,000 and 40,000 public-sector jobs over the next three years, with local councils again set to bear the brunt of the cuts. 

Far from a progressive beacon for the English left to laud, this is the Bute House version of George Osborne’s austerity economics.

The reason the English left glances at Scotland with adoring eyes is because the rhetoric sounds good. But the fact is the delivery is atrocious.

Take Scotland’s railways, for example. The Novara Media article referenced that ScotRail has been brought into public ownership. 

That is true. But the article did not mention that rather than invest in that new publicly owned service and the workers who deliver it, the new publicly owned railway is overseeing station ticket office closures and a temporary timetable that has cut 700 weekday trains. That is the SNP government in a nutshell — strong on the politics, weak on the delivery.

That is why we should pay close attention to a government that now proclaims it is rolling out community wealth-building.

The CWU supports the community wealth-building models introduced by socialists in places like Preston and North Ayrshire because they are serious attempts to rewire their local economies, placing workers at the heart of a socially owned economy that locks wealth in for the betterment of local people.

However, a cursory glance at the SNP’s rhetoric on community wealth-building, and their record of policy delivery, represents a threat to making such ambitious community wealth-building approaches the mainstream for local economic development.

The success of community wealth-building to date has been bottom-up approaches to economic development, with local political leaders taking things into their own hands and challenging the traditional economic development orthodoxy of fishing about for private investment, often from abroad, to support developer-led regeneration that completely ignores the needs and wants of the local community. 

It is not a coincidence that in Britain it has been post-industrial regions that have suffered decades of poverty and deprivation that have grasped the community wealth-building nettle. 

We should therefore be very cautious when a government with a record of centralisation, and plans for more with the creation of their supposed national care service, starts to adopt the language.

Because the language is the easy part. That is the politics. It is what the SNP is good at. It is the delivery that is the problem.

And listening to the debate on community wealth-building in the Scottish Parliament the other week, you can see that is going to be the problem again. 

There is plenty of talk of using procurement to support local economies, less talk about democratic ownership of the economy and land. 

More worryingly, across the chamber, hearing MSPs across the political divide talk about traditional infrastructure projects like roads in connection to community wealth-building suggests a complete lack of understanding on the part of our legislators.

The problem is some in the community wealth-building movement seem to be falling for the utopian rhetoric. Proclamations of Scotland being the first country to adopt community wealth-building, or even a “world leader,” are extremely premature. 

Yes, we may have a minister with “community wealth” in their title. Yes, we have a commitment to a community wealth-building Bill during this Scottish Parliament term. 

But based on their previous record, that Bill is more likely to place another public duty on financially ravaged councils to produce a community wealth-building plan than it is to remove the structural barriers to progressive procurement, co-operative development and bringing derelict land and buildings into public and common ownership.

CWU Scotland will not sit around and hope that this time the SNP government delivers. We will be actively campaigning for a community wealth-building Bill that truly makes Scotland a world leader in community wealth-building. 

A Bill befitting of the radical work in Preston and North Ayrshire. One that would make it possible for our members to own their companies with worker-owned post offices and broadband. 

That is the potential of community wealth-building and we are up for fighting for it.

Craig Anderson is CWU Scotland regional secretary.