Councillors

Councillors play a very important role in local democracy.  They have been elected by their communities and mandated to make decisions on their behalf.  Councillors are the legally elected democratic representatives for the communities they serve.

The aim of participatory budgeting, is not in any way to diminish the role of councillors or make their jobs more difficult.  In fact, it's aim is to support representative democracy and to build trust and legitimacy with the representative democratic system that's already in place.  

Reducing numbers voting in elections (whether local or national) is a big concern to everyone.  By empowering people through participatory budgeting (which has voting as a key element within it, and so encourages the act of voting), local people are more likely to get involved because they see their local councillors genuinely making a difference in their communities, they can get involved themselves in voting on spend in their area, and so they are more likely to be encouraged to get involved and vote for those people they saw at the participatory budgeting events and since, and to be more involved themselves in their communities because they're more aware of what's going on.

Whilst it's true there are many other mechanisms out there that empower people and that get people involved to see what's happening in their communities, meet and talk with their councillors, and to get involved in community life, but experience has shown that in general, more people attend participatory budgeting events and get involved this way because they feel that their involvement will make a difference.  They are voting on how to spend money and even small amounts of money can get more people than usual involved, and stay involved. 

The following pages explain more about the role of councillors in participatory budgeting.