How much does the process cost to the municipality and how are these covered?
The Participatory Budget implies a series of costs for the local government. To implement a Participatory Budget properly, four types of resources are needed: a)municipal staff committed and trained to implement the process, including being willing to work nights and weekends, b) means of transportation to be able to circulate throughout the neighbourhoods and transport the municipal staff, c) ample communication resources in order to share information with the public, d) personnel for the technical, economic and budgetary feasibility studies of the prioritised demands. In addition, to accelerate the process and ensure its quality, it is important to have resources to transport people who live far from the meeting places and to train functionaries as well as citizens, and in particular delegates, in the Participatory Budgeting process. Cities that have not planned for these costs have, in general, faced difficulties and, in some cases, have even suspended the activity. Therefore, it is important to do a cost/benefit analysis before deciding to implement a Participatory Budget.
The Department for Communities and Local Government commissioned SQW to undertake an extensive national evaluation of PB. One of the questions the research was required to answer was how much does PB cost to implement. SQW found that this was impossible to answer definitely as it varied so much from initiative to initiative. To an extent - how much was spent depended on how much was available to spend. Some areas had very little so only allocated part of 1 FTEs time and a few hundred pounds for flyers and venue hire. Others have dedicated entire teams of FTEs and a few thousand pounds for publicity and events. It also depends on the type of process - those that undertake postal ballots will incur more postage and printing charges than those that have a single event - although the cost of the venue may outweight the cost of postage.
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