Communities and neighbourhoods

Participatory Budgeting

Participatory budgeting is one of the key practices that can successfully empower large numbers of local people. It engages with local people to take decisions on the spending priorities for a part of a public budget in their local area, for example for activities such as local environmental issues, community facilities, road safety measures or local crime initiatives.

On 19 March 2008 the Secretary of State launched a consultation into the draft national strategy on participatory budgeting which set out how we propose to promote and facilitate the use of participatory budgeting more widely 'Participatory Budgeting: A Draft National Strategy - Giving more people a say in local spending'. There are currently 22 participatory budgeting pilot areas in England, and more are on their way.

Communities and Local Government funds the Participatory Budgeting Unit to help promote and develop participatory budgeting and advise community development workers and local authority officials on the development of new projects. Visit www.participatorybudgeting.org.uk (external link) to find out more about the Participatory Budgeting unit.

On 15 June 2008, the IDEeA published on their web site a report called Joining in: participatory budgeting and local government, which was commissioned by Communities and Local Government. The report presents the results of a survey of local authorities' participatory budgeting activity. 160 local authorities responded (117 of which to full questionnaires) about their level of engagement with citizens around budgets, and specifically experience with participatory budgeting or plans to trial it.

The report demonstrates some good positive experience of participatory budgeting; but indicates that more high level good practice examples of participatory budgeting and a wider understanding of its core characteristics might help encourage more councils to adopt it. Read the full report on the IDeA's site [available on the right hand side of this page].

Background

The Community Empowerment Action Plan which Hazel Blears launched in October 2007 identifies participatory budgeting as a key element of the government's drive to ensure more local communities are engaged in decisions over public services and to reinvigorate local democracy, along with measures such as neighbourhood charters, community ownership of assets and the community call for action.

Participatory budgeting brings additional benefits:

it helps to improve budget literacy for local people
can lead to real improvements in the way local people work with elected officials
it helps brings diverse people together, supporting community cohesion

Participatory budgeting could be a key tool for local authorities to consider to help implement the Best Value Duty to inform, consult, and involve as set out in the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007.