Author Colin McNally B.A.Hons, F.C.M.A, C.G.M.A
November 2025
Small and growing businesses are the backbone of Scotland’s local economies. Yet too many enter the market without robust business plans, resilient financial forecasts, or a mechanism to adapt when conditions change. Councils can change that, by embedding planning and forecasting into their enterprise support systems, procurement pipelines, and investment criteria, they can materially improve firm survival rates, quality of growth, and the circular flow of value within communities.
When councils normalise high quality business planning and scenario-based forecasting across their business base, they reduce failure rates, accelerate sustainable growth, and keep more economic value local, advancing all five pillars of Community Wealth Building (plural ownership, fair work, progressive procurement, financial power, and land & assets).
Firms with realistic plans and 18–24month cashflow forecasts are better able to anticipate and mitigate working capital squeezes, price shocks, or contract delays. Forecasting disciplines help founders focus on margin, capital efficiency, and customer concentration risk. Too often firms focus only on what sales they will achieve. Moreover, when grants and loans are tied to credible plans and living forecasts, public capital funding can then anticipate greater private investment.
Business planning support can be tailored to all within the Small and Medium Enterprise sectors including those in foundational sectors such as care, food, retrofit, and transport, ensuring models are commercially sound and mission consistent. Financial plans that price in fair pay, training and progression, prevent a race to the bottom on wages whilst improving retention and productivity. Suppliers that understand cost drivers and cashflow can bid responsibly, deliver reliably, and invest locally. Forecasting reduces the underbidding that leads to failure and contract termination.
For every supported Small and Growth Business, the goal should be a concise, decision ready plan covering market, value proposition, delivery model, team, risks, and a 24-month milestone roadmap, alongside a three-statement model (P&L, cashflow, and balance sheet) with monthly granularity, driver-based assumptions, and version control. This can be extended to what if scenarios, i.e. looking at what happens if sales are greater or less than predicted, or you lose a key customer or supplier.
Councils have multiple levers to scale planning and forecasting by utilising it, where appropriate within grant and loan application processes. Many of Scotland’s Councils already do. However, to enable businesses to meet that criteria, advisory and upskilling initiatives caninclude bootcamps, accredited advisers, and peer review circles to equip founders with practical skills.
Early adopters could be onboarded through bootcamps and pilot funding schemes, with dashboards established. Integration would involve embedding requirements in grant schemes and procurement frameworks, alongside peer review circles and buyer roundtables. By year-end, incentives could be introduced, templates refreshed, and independent evaluations conducted. Governance would require leadership at Cabinet level, a joint programme board with enterprise agencies and education partners, input from diverse business founders, and light touch assurance mechanisms.
Equity and inclusion are vital. Templates and support should be provided in accessible formats, at family friendly times, with options for rural participation. Sector specific realities such as seasonal cashflows must be explicitly modelled, and barriers to finance for thinly capitalised firms mitigated with credit enhancements.
Risks such as administrative burden and one-size-fits-all approaches can be mitigated through concise templates. Over a 3–5-year horizon, success would mean higher business survival rates, better quality jobs, increased local capture of council spend, more external finance unlocked with lower arrears, and businesses would be better prepared for continual change within the economy.
The call to action for councils is clear: communities prosper when local businesses are built on solid plans and realistic forecasts, not on hope. By setting clear standards, providing shared tools, and aligning finance and procurement around planning discipline, Scottish councils can turn good intentions into durable, inclusive, locally anchored growth.
To see how we can help you with business planning and financial forecasting, contact operations@cjmlumina.co.uk