Welcome to the Participatory Budgeting Unit

Participatory budgeting directly involves local people in making decisions on the spending and priorities for a defined public budget.

The Participatory Budgeting Unit is a project of the charity Church Action on Poverty, based in Manchester in the UK....

We support public sector and community groups in developing participatory budgeting processes in their local areas within the UK. We are working with the Department for Communities and Local Government in rolling out and supporting their programme of participatory budgeting pilots.

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Copyright 2007, by the Contributing Authors. Cite/attribute Resource. admin. (2007, April 02). Welcome to the Participatory Budgeting Unit. Retrieved February 04, 2012, from Participatory Budgeting Unit Web site: http://www.participatorybudgeting.org.uk/front-page. All Rights Reserved.

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Teresa and Sue in Manton, Nottinghamshire

“ Over the past seven years, Sue and Teresa have helped Manton Community Alliance transform Manton almost beyond recognition. What particularly appealed to them was the participative approach to community development, initially via participatory appraisal and then participatory budgeting. It is an approach centred on the importance of valuing the knowledge and experience of local people and empowering them to identify their own priorities, find solutions to the problems affecting them and to make their own decisions about how public money should be spent. ”

[more PB stories]

Teresa and Sue in Manton, Nottinghamshire

Case Study

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. ”

[more case studies]