Participatory Budgeting

Participatory Budgeting(PB) was pioneered in Brazil to involve people at a grassroots level in deciding how new public investment should be best spent. Many local authority consultation processes give little reason for people to turn out except to demand lower taxes. PB establishes a process in which the effects of people’s participation are directly seen in policy change, more effective spending or different spending priorities. PB is not just a consultation exercise, but rather an embodiment of direct, deliberative democracy. Where PB has been instituted effectively there have been real improvements in the lives of the poorest.

Church Action on Poverty and the Community Pride Initiative jointly created the PB Unit, which has been working on developing Participatory Budgeting in Britain for the last 5 years.

The PB Unit is now the lead agency on participatory budgeting for the government. In July 2007, citing our pilot work, Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, announced that all local authorities should be doing some form of PB within five years. Since then, over 150 local authorities have asked for some form of help or support, and we have identified a new round of pilots in Wiltshire, Sefton, Thanet, Dartford, Cornwall, Lancaster, Mansfield, Lancaster, Suffolk, Leicester, Wirral, Banstead-Reigate, and South Lakeland.

We are also beginning to work with other public agencies such as health authorities and police forces around the potential for PB work on pooled budgets.

Extensive background information on Participatory Budgeting, the PB Unit, and the existing pilot processes can be found at www.participatorybudgeting.org.uk.