More about Participatory Budgeting

Currently, participatory budgeting projects have allocated spending on a number of services including crime and anti-social behaviour, the environment, road improvements, activities for children and young people, health and fitness activities, community centres and improving assets such as football facilities. 

PB projects have been specific to certain neighbourhoods or areas, or they have been local authority-wide and themed, for example, children and young people, and health. 

As PB is quite new, innovative forms of PB are being developed all the time and new budgets, new themes, new partners, different areas are demonstrating that PB is possible and beneficial for a wide range of services and areas.

The PB process usually requires citizen engagement in the various phases of a budget cycle to identify the capital investments and projects to address the most pressing local needs.

PB involves citizens, councillors and local government officers working together. PB aims to include those who are not traditionally engaged in policy decisions. As well as citizen involvement PB creates opportunities for greater efficiency in the allocation of public funds and increased community cohesion. The main features of PB include:

• A geographically defined area such as a local authority, a decentralised district of a local authority, or a defined neighbourhood
• Regularly scheduled meetings and debates in each geographical unit;
• A cycle of activities closely following the local budgeting cycle
• A network of individuals and organisations involved in training, informing and mobilising local citizens

There is no universal way of applying PB. Methodologies vary from area to area but typically it involves allocating between two to three percent of the annual revenue budgets and sometimes the allocation of new investments. The process involves citizens taking into account both the demand and supply of services and public infrastructure. In the UK, PB has mainly been applied to allocating resources for area regeneration and for directing statutory funds to voluntary sector organisations.