Children and Young People
A significant amount of public funding is spent on children and young people. Involving them in the allocation of it is crucial both for developing active citizens with an understanding of democracy and budgeting and for more effective use of that funding.
There have been a number of isolated projects which have involved children and young people in making decisions on public budgets. Some of those have involved them as part of the main PB process, alongside the adults, and others have been specifically tailored to children and young people using budgets specifically targeted for them.
Most notable have been the example of the Childrens Fund in Newcastle, where young people who were socially excluded and didn't tend to get involved were targetted to learn about PB, design the process, and run it for their peers to vote on how resources were spent. The funds used were Youth Opportunities Funding which had to be used on positive activities for children and young people. Whilst the young people didn't directly vote on the whole YOF, the decisions they made impacted on how the rest of the budget was spent with the majority going to themes identified by them.
Another significant example is the Young Mayor's Fund in Tower Hamlets which involved young people not only in deciding how the Young Mayor's budget is spent but also in electing the Young Mayor to office - a real example of learning about democracy by participating.
There are some examples of PB with younger children such as the primary school in Scottswood in Newcastle and the Everyone Counts project with 8 primary schools in Walsall.
We would like to develop this area further as we consider sector to have a lot of potential, both in terms of developing the learning and education of young people, and involving those that are more marginalised; and in more effectively allocating the resources of schools, social care, and other young people's budgets.
We recently launched the Every1Counts campaign, to raise awareness in this sector and are seeking funding to develop this programme.
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PB masterclass: commissioning and budget cycles
