It’s not that I thought that PB was the same around the world – in fact, we often talk about PB being different in the UK from the rest of Europe.  This is largely to do with the reasons why PB was brought to the UK, and who was involved.  And of course, our highly centralised state which limits the amount of say that people can have over budgets locally. 

I don’t know whether it was the language barrier (I don’t speak any German at all, and most of the German speakers there seemed to know limited English) or things lost in translation; but it seemed at times that we were talking about completely different PB.  And then I realised, that PB in Germany is very different from PB in the UK.  We both thought we were talking about the same thing – PB – but it turns out we were talking about different processes entirely which are implemented for entirely different reasons.  This then became a theme, for me, for the conference.

German PB, seems to me to be a more elaborate form of budget consultation.  And it’s done for the purpose of service modernisation.  So because empowerment is not a key objective, who participates and how is less of an issue.  But using the internet for PB is key, because it’s about modernisation and engaging with people in setting budget priorities is a way of modernising services.   If you engage people online, they can engage in a way and a time that suits them – is their rationale.  When I talked about engaging with different ‘hard to reach’ groups by utilising community leaders and existing local networks (for example asking mosque leaders to promote PB to their followers, and using Muslim women’s groups to target women), there was an obvious gasp around the room.  It seems like common sense to us, but to them, it was a completely new idea because it is not their raison d’etre for PB. 

German PB does not involve any decision making on the part of residents.  All views are taken to the local councillors and they make the decision, taking the results of the consultation exercise into consideration.  Which is why I think it’s what we’d call budget consultation.

There was Ernesto Ganuza from Spain talking about PB in Seville too.  The focus of their PB is on poverty alleviation by the redistribution of wealth to poorer people and neighbourhoods.  They use social justice criteria to frame their deliberations about priorities and projects.  The process they follow, however, is very similar to the Porto Alegre model.  This kind of model is something that we can more readily understand in the UK as poverty alleviation – or reducing deprivation – is something that is important to us too, and models that look at allocating mainstream funding for mainstream services is the direction PB seems to be heading here. 

The conference also heard from George Matovu from Uganda, although he was representing PB across Africa.  In Africa (it seems wrong to talk about an entire continent in this way, but this is how he put it) their focus is much more on government transparency, fighting corruption within government and creating greater equality through gender budgeting.  Their processes are designed to address these issues rather than empowerment per se.  Whilst we would agree with these sentiments the issues of corruption and gender inequality are not the same in the UK as they are in Africa. 

All of this left me thinking – if PB is so different in different countries – there are different processes implemented for entirely different (although not always uncomplimentary) reasons – at what point does it stop being PB?  Or if it’s all PB how do you differentiate between the different approaches and purposes so that you’re not left feeling like it’s all lost in translation?

In the end I came full circle, and realised, that PB has to be adapted to local circumstance and local need.  Rather than wondering what is and isn’t PB, we should be looking at other PB processes and other purposes such as greater government transparency, or whether the funding allocated is fairly distributed either to those most in need or across the community as a whole?  Maybe PB has greater potential than is currently realised and perhaps we shouldn’t be so focussed on what we do now that we miss the opportunities to do more.