DELIVERING PROMISES? THE RISE, FALL AND RISE OF SCOTTISH COMMUNITY BUSINESS

Scotland has pioneered a number of innovative approaches to local economic development. For example managed workspaces, new enterprise workshops and employment grants either originated in Scotland or had their credibility enhanced following the experiences of Scottish local authorities, especially Strathclyde Region (Hayton 1984a). One of the most interesting approaches to emerge in the 1980s was community business. Although the concept of community economic self help was pioneered in the West of Ireland and then transplanted to the Scottish Highlands in the 1970s, it developed as an urban initiative in West Central Scotland. From there it rapidly spread throughout the rest of Britain so that it is now seen as an integral part of the economic development strategies of many public sector agencies (Pearce 1993). This rapid dissemination took place without any clear understanding of the advantages that supporting community business brought. In part this reflected the rises in unemployment that took place in the early 1980s and the impact that this had upon many localities and their communities. This was paralleled by a seeming indifference on the part of Central Government which increasingly saw its role as creating what it felt were the appropriate macro-economic conditions to stimulate long-term growth. If the outcome was high levels of unemployment then this was a short-term price that was