Ask An Expert

Ask us a question!

Send us any question you like about PB and we will do our best to answer it.  We will send you a response by email and also post the response on the website. 

Any offensive questions, repeat questions, or questions unrelated to PB generally (we'll accept quite a wide range on engagement and empowerment and participation) won't be posted on the website.

For general comments and queries, requests for advice or support please use the contact form under 'contact' at the top of the page or phone us. 

Questions

How far beyond small pots of funding can PB really go without major cultural change?

Is there a conflict between cabinet style decision making and empowering residents?

Most of the projects so far only use a small amount of money. Do people really bother to get involved?

Does PB transfer power to elected members?

What happens when the expert 'knows best' about local issues?

How do you ensure good representation of the community at events?

Who will be the leaders in taking forward PB?

How do you avoid the merits of schemes being determined by 'populist' decision making processes?

how will Participatory budget affect fire and rescue services? will fire services have to give oppertunity for pb

We are located in a community whose representative wishes to explore PB. One concern is that local NGOs will attempt to steer their clients to sway consensus, which they have done in the past. How do we balance what are essentially lobbyists for the NGO's themselves against greater community priorities?

We're keen to make sure that the evaluation of our pilots is as thorough as possible but we know that it will be difficult to get information about who HASN'T engaged in the process and why not. Can you suggest any methods for analysing non-participation?

We are in the middle of a significant savings exercise (taking £3m out of our £14m net budget over 2 years) and I am thinking about a PB exercise involving choices about where the savings are made. In other words, this isn't about deciding where to spend, but where to cut. Do you have any advice or case studies of a similar exercise?

We want to get on with it - what resources/assistance is available?

How do you convert the sceptics?