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Scottish Community Alliance

- Local People Leading

In 2011, a number of Scotland’s community sector networks came together to form the Scottish Community Alliance. Our purpose is to campaign collectively for a stronger and more cohesive community sector in Scotland.

SCA has two main functions – to promote the work of local people in their communities and to influence national policy in order to reflect the best interests of the sector.

A guiding principle for SCA as an organisation is that it should seek to add value to the work of the individual networks within its membership. To this end, as an organisation it has remained ‘light touch’, employing a minimum of staff, and directly investing whenever possible in activities that compliment and support the work of its membership.

In 2023, we published Our Vision for Scotland . It is a bold and ambitious plan that requires radical action to deliver it

Our Manifesto for Action contains over 80 recommendations for action by the Scottish Government and our local authorities that would deliver our vision.

Consultation responses

The Scottish Government frequently consults on matters of policy and new legislation. SCA will occasionally respond to these consultations on behalf of its members either to amplify the views of individual members or to represent a collective position that the members have agreed to.

The most recent consultations that SCA has submitted a response to are :

Building Community Wealth in Scotland 

Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation

Delivering our Vision for Scottish Agriculture – Proposals for a new Agriculture Bill

Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill

The most clicked on story in our most recently published Briefing – 13th March 2024

Would Wheatley approve?

John Wheatley was a socialist politician from the Red Clydeside era of Scottish politics. He lived in very different political times from today and although he’s often described as the founding father of social housing, one can’t help wondering how he would feel about his name and reputation having been appropriated by the housing behemoth, Wheatley Homes. Wheatley’s apparent disregard for the concerns of tenants on the Wyndford Estate in Glasgow whose homes they propose to demolish without even having carried out an environmental impact assessment, was laid bare in The Scottish Parliament recently. And all in the great man’s name.

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Community Anchor Organisations

Those communities that are the most effective in terms of organising themselves to address whatever challenges they face, appear to have certain characteristics in common. In particular, these communities tend to organise themselves around a local organisation (sometimes more than one working in partnership) which is under the control and ownership of local people.

These organisations have come to be known as Community Anchor Organisations (CAOs). Since its formation, SCA has consistently advocated that the presence of a community  anchor organisation is a prerequisite of effective and sustained community empowerment.

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Our fortnightly briefing - LOCAL PEOPLE LEADING

Once a fortnight, we publish LOCAL PEOPLE LEADING - a compendium of comment and coverage of relevant policy and stories of community action from across the spectrum. Currently going out to just over 4,900 subscribers - a readership which include community activists, journalists, academics, politicians (national, local and community), civil servants and local government officers. Anyone with even a passing interest in Scotland's community sector should subscribe - and it's free!