Case Studies
Voice Your Choice, Manton, Nottinghamshire
Just under 2 years ago Manton Community Alliance was chosen as a pilot area for a participatory budgeting pilot, the aim was to allocate a budget for priorities in the area that have been set by the community.
The Children's Fund, Newcastle
After months of preparation, 139 young people attended a participatory budgeting event in Newcastle in May 2008 to cast a 20% vote in the procurement of services for the city’s £2.25m Children’s Fund.
Your Community, Your Health, Your Voice
Participatory budgeting project in Thornhill, Southampton. This case study concerns the Participatory Budgeting pilot, ‘Your Health, Your Community, Your Vote’, which took place in Thornhill, Southampton in June 2008.
Everyone Counts, Walsall
The Everyone Counts project involved working with children between the ages of 6-11 years old through the school council’s.
U-Choose For Cornwall
Three participatory budgeting events involving small grants were carried out in Cornwall under the banner of ‘U-Choose for Cornwall’. The events were held in the following locations: • Pengegon, Parc an Tansys and Gwelmor • Redruth North • Treneere
The St. Ann’s Funding Team Awards for Young People 2009 – ‘The SAFTA’s’ in Stockon on Tees
The St. Ann’s Funding Team Awards for Young People 2009 (The SAFTA’s) a participatory budgeting event was held on the 19th March 2009.
You Decide!, Tower Hamlets (London)
The Tower Hamlets ‘You Decide!’ project began in January 2009. In the first four months we ran 8 events across which 815 residents spent almost £2.4 million. The money was from the central council budget and was spent on additional mainstream council services.
Your Voice Your Choice, Leicestershire
Leicestershire Together has allocated £20,000 to each of its 27 Community Forums (a total of £540,000), for a Participatory Budgeting process. Spending is to be completed by March 2011.
It's UP2U in Tameside
Greater Manchester Police were awarded funds from the Home Office to implement two pilots in the Greater Manchester area. They chose Tameside and Stockport divisions as their pilot areas. Tameside police decided to use their funds in the St. Peters ward. St. Peters is both an area of high deprivation and very multicultural with a large Asian community.
Acorns Your Voice, Your Choice Ballot
Your Voice, Your Choice ballot project was one of the Home Office community safety PB pilots which was given £20,000 of Home Office funding for PB. The time constraints for delivery were such that service providers were asked to come up with projects that met the community safety criteria. Ten were short listed by the steering group to go on the ballot.
Voice Your Choice in Eastfield, Scarborough
Residents of Eastfield voted on how £32,000 should be spent on projects addressing crime and community safety issues. As well as local people voting for projects at the ‘Decision Day’ in June 2009, residents played a key role in the design and delivery of the process.
Eich Dinas, Eich Dewis - Your City, Your Choice in St. Asaph
The ancient Cathedral Town of St Asaph (population 3,600) is central to North Wales, on the A55 Trunk road (Euroroute E22). In December 2008 the Town Council unanimously voted to carry out a PB pilot, promoting Community Cohesion, Safety, Green and Intergenerational projects.
Section 106 funding in East Devon
One of the Council’s priorities is ‘Children and Young People’ and inviting them to help design and vote on play and recreation provided an excellent opportunity for the Council to engage with children and young people.
Cae Ddol Park PB in Ruthin
In 2009, the council was forced to demolish the paddling pool in Cae Ddol park, resulting in passionate objections from many residents. The council decided to meet with residents and offer them £25,000 to decide how to spend this money in the park.
Rural Cornwall, China Clay Community Network
The China Clay Community Network was approached in September 2009 and asked whether it would be interested in running one of the Participatory Budgeting pilot small grants schemes. This was discussed with the Cornwall Councillors and it was agreed that we would focus this event on the rural villages of Whitemoor, Nanpean and Foxhole. The reasons for choosing these villages was that they were all in one parish and they were all relatively close together (within a three mile radius of the central village of Nanpean). They were also isolated and have been historically difficult to engage with.
"Your borough, your say" in Great Yarmouth
Participatory Budgeting in Different Community Settings - comparing urban and rural neighbourhoods.
Adeyfield Action “You Choose” (Hemel Hempstead)
As part of Hertfordshire County Council's localism agenda, £50,000 was allocated for an event in Adeyfield using participatory budgeting principles. Surveys on the percentage of people who feel they can influence decisions in their locality, had highlighted that the lowest scores throughout Hertfordshire were in Dacorum Borough and, within Dacorum, the lowest scores were to be found in the Adeyfield neighbourhood of Hemel Hempstead.
Parr Investment Grant Voting Day 2009 & 2010 (St. Helen's)
In 2008 Parr Neighbourhood Management (re:new parr) decided to change the format in alocating it’s Parr Investment Grant (PIG). From a panel type meeting in which an apprasial group consisting a cross section of the board would dicsuss applications and approve, reject or defer the applications,to a particpatory budgeting sytem
The Boston Placecheck project
This project is grass roots neighbourhood intervention, working with residents in neighbourhoods to find out the qualities of a place – what is good, what is bad and what improvements are needed.
PB in High Wycombe
The Castlefield & Oakridge area of High Wycombe were awarded funds totalling £55,000 from the Connecting to Communities funds. This was to be a community-led process with the funds being allocated on priorities in the area which had been identified by the community themselves.
Sensible Spending in Dulverton, Somerset
Dulverton parish council has been implementing PB since 2009, and has now developed an innovative approach which involves a number of organisations and budgets which are spent in Dulverton and looks at how they can best be spent
Glow in the Park, Vote in the Dark in Milton Keynes
This participatory budgeting voting event was originally run under the banner of “You Say, We Pay!” in September 2011 but low attendance led to a re-run in December 2011. Though the name changed it was clearly linked to the original “You Say, We Pay!” name in all advertising but incorporated a more fun element involving a youth choir, light sculptures, African drumming and a juggling Disco Stu on stilts! Following a light and song procession residents were led back to market stalls where the various projects “sold” their ideas and voting took place.
Get involved with The People's Budget!
Choose Health in Deptford
PB masterclass: commissioning and budget cycles
