When I began working with Participatory Budgeting initiatives with Bradford Vision, The Local Strategic Partnership there,  one thing that began to strike me was that a ‘mini PB’  culture began to evolve. If a pot of money became available, people would almost automatically think, how can we use this for PB?.Something  similar now seems to be happening in the  Eastfield area of Scarborough.  Since 2009, when funds were made available through the NorthYorkshire Police Authority, for a Participatory Budgeting  pilot exercise,  Eastfield has been at the forefront of developing  PB in  a local context.  For the 2010 event, the Parish Council set aside a proportion of its precept  to provide a ‘pot’ for the PB decision day, and this year the precept amount is £15k, topped up with £3k from the local Housing Trust 

The Residents’ steering group  then began to look further  afield, with the result that an event was held at Overdale Primary School, using one thousand pounds, provided 50/50 from the Parish Council and Housing Trust.  Chris Parsons, the Group’s chair, said, ‘It just seemed an obvious next step, to take it (PB) into the schools’

  The children at the school, aged between four to eleven, were asked to come up with ideas for school improvements, which they did, ranging from sports equipment to the setting up of a ‘chill out’ quiet area.  Supporters of each idea then gathered in a school hall, in front of display stands they had designed themselves, and promoted their schemes to the entire school, who visited the hall, class by class. One child asked, ‘Can we vote for our own.?’ When told yes, she said ‘Oh cool’. Everyone at the school (pupils, teachers, other staff) was provided with three tokens, and were asked to vote for their favourite three projects, by placing a token in a bucket by the relevant stand. 

Everyone, from the reception class upwards, took the process very seriously: there was a certain amount  of ‘lobbying’ by the project supporters, making for a very lively atmosphere, but nothing untoward – whilst the teachers involved maintained general order in terms of explaining the process and shepherding the classes to and from the voting area, everyone involved seemed to ‘get’ the importance of maintaining the integrity of the process, having had a good deal of input into its design and delivery. 

In the end 7 out of 18 proposals were funded. Vicky Logan, the school’s head, thought the event had been very successful. 

‘Very good at getting the whole school working on  a shared project. This is really important.’

  There was a general sense of wanting to do this again, funds always permitting.  

On the principle of ‘catch them young’, it’s great to see awareness of PB and its possibilities spreading to this part of the local community. So what’s next? On the walk back from the school Chris pointed out a local roundabout, currently overgrown. ‘The plan is to get everyone to vote on what to do with that’. And why not?