People power on public purse strings

2.58.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 27th Apr 2009

Would you like more control over the way public money is spent? At last week's Council meeting, Liberal Democrat Councillor, Rosalind Wright, asked the City Council's Executive how they intend to give local people more of a say in the Council's finances.

"Local authorities have the power to provide for "participatory budgeting"", says Cllr Wright. "This means that local residents can discuss, suggest and vote on the way the Council spends some of its money. The money could be spent on community facilities such as playground equipment, bollards, fencing, public seating, as has been done in some council areas. The Government wants all local authorities making use of this provision by 2012 and I think we should be looking very seriously at its possibilities.

"While funding is extremely tight at Norwich City Council and will continue to be so for some time, I nevertheless hope that we can all find ways of involving the public very directly in our budget-making, whether it be through the creation of area budgets or by allowing them more of a say in aspects of how the core budget is spent now.

The Labour Executive said they were working on the idea of "participatory budgeting" but were unable to give an exact timescale or explain what schemes (if any) would be in place by 2012.

Notes:

1) Cllr Wright's question:

In view of the government's desire to have "participatory budgeting" functioning in every local authority by 2012, could the Executive member please indicate how the Executive intends to bring this into effect in Norwich?

Response from the Executive for Member Neighbourhood Development:-

'Participatory budgeting is one of the many tools available to the Council to widen the involvement of residents in the decision making process and is identified as such in the Executive's Neighbourhood Strategy. Participatory Budgeting has been used by a number of local authorities across the country in a variety of different ways and as such there is no standard approach to what it is and how it is implemented. The approach most regularly used by local authorities has been participatory grant making where residents vote on where a grant fund is allocated.

The main features of participatory budgeting are that it:

• Usually involves meetings to discuss and agree priorities and a voting mechanism to "allocate" the budget

• The process can work at a neighbourhood, cross authority or thematic level e.g. young, older people

• Initial budget allocations are often modest to allow for the process to be tried and tested and for trust to be built

• Setting up participatory budgeting needs a significant investment of time and resource for it to be effective and those involved to be supported.

Good examples of participatory budgeting ensure that:

• Everyone has the opportunity to become involved

• The process is representative and accessible

• There is good communication

• Participants are supported, trained, fully informed of the projects and the outcomes of decisions

• Councillors are involved

• There is an identified budget

• Staff and Councillors are trained

• Councils follow through with decisions made and it is a positive experience

The principles of Participatory Budgeting have been used once before by the Council during a regeneration programme in Catton Grove in 2004 where a range of projects were voted on by a steering group of residents. For participatory budgeting to be fully effective the necessary foundations need to be place and community capacity building has taken place to make it truly representative. Over the past two years the Executive have been ensuring that these foundations are in place through the creation of the Community Engagement Team and the development of the Community Engagement Strategy and the Neighbourhood Strategy. The next stages will be to rebuild community confidence and re-engage with our neighbourhoods.

Recognising that each neighbourhood has differing needs and aspirations and will develop its own ways of engaging with the Council, it is likely that Participatory Budgeting will happen at different stages and in different ways across the City, therefore it would not be possible to give an exact timescale for when and how Participatory Budgeting will be in place although 2012 is a reasonable target to aim for.'

2) "Participatory budgeting" first began in the 1980s in a city in Brazil called Porto Alegre. It allowed the public to have democratic control of banks in the city and was hugely successful. The initiative spread to 140 cities in Brazil and is now operated in over 300 cities across the world. It was identified as good practice by international institutions including the World Bank, UNESCO, OECD, DFID (Source: Participatory Budgeting Unit).

3) In July 2007, Secretary of State Hazel Blears announced the trial of participatory budgeting in 10 local authorities: Merseyside, Nottinghamshire, Birmingham, Lewisham, Bradford, Salford, Sunderland, Newcastle, Southampton and St Helens. The Government has since indicated that they wish all authorities to be using participatory budgeting by 2012. (Source: BBC)