How can PB improve the commissioning of public services?
Each year a public sector organisations have to decide what services to purchase from the public funds they manage. The process of making these decisions is generally known as commissioning. This follows a well structured process that involves: Understanding local needs and planning how to address them, identifying the right people to meet those needs, evaluating on quality and outcomes, and benchmarking your activity against similar bodies. Involving residents and service users is critical to high quality commissioning. Participatory budgeting is a way for involving local people and service recipients at each step of the commissioning processes, through an annual budget engagement cycle.
