Q.
We are about to launch a small grants PB scheme in one of our wards and are working very closely with a local community development group to ensure that the process is as fully embedded in the community. There is currently a lack of agreement about the minimum age limit of voters. could you please indicate whether minimum ages have been imposed in other schemes and suggest whether there is any concensus on an appropriate minimum age.
A.
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In other initiatives minimum age limits have been imposed. In fact, whether consciously or not, they have been imposed in all of them. However, because PB is tailored to each local situation, there is no consensus on what age is appropriate. It entirely depends on your process, your local situation and what you're wanting to achieve with PB.
Some initiatives have specifically targeted children and young people such as in Walsall where they worked exclusively with children in 8 primary schools. In Newcastle they worked with socially excluded young people to allocate youth opportunities funding and in Salisbury they worked with disabled young people and young carers. The purpose of their PB initiatives is to engage with children and young people on allocating resources so it made sense to involve them exclusively. Some of these initiatives have provided case studies on our website. Other children and young people case studies to look at are Leicester and Stockton on Tees.
Other initiatives have opened the process to all residents and have set a lower age limit. This has ranged from adults only with a lower limit of 18, to some young people's involvement from 16 years onwards to involving children at an age organisers considered children able to make decisions without significant capacity building - but this again has varied from 8 to 11.
The lower age limit you set is up to you and depends on your local circumstances. However, some points to consider are:
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Given your local context are young people likely to improve the process or cause friction?
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Are there reasons for including or excluding children and young people (for example are some of the proposed projects aimed at young people)?
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What is your purpose for doing PB? Does it include engaging with all groups or are you targeting your approach?
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Are community & voluntary groups proposing projects and are children and young people involved in their proposals or could they be presenting the project to the wider community for a vote? If children and young people are involved in some way in the voting event or process it may seem unfair to exclude them from the decision making.
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You say you are involving the community in designing the process - what are their thoughts on involving young people?
One of our colleagues, Jez Hall, specialises in PB with children and young people. If you have further queries or would like to discuss your ideas, please do get in touch with us.
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