United Kingdom
CFE: Research and Consultancy Specialists in Employment and Skills
What do we know about Porto Alegres participatory budgeting and what significance does this Brazilian city have in the development of local government policy in the UK.
In the development of the Community Empowerment agenda there has been a lot written about Porto Alegre and its influence on the agenda in the UK. Participatory budgeting is where the link between Porto Alegre and local government policy in the U
Britain Local Governments
Porto Alegre was the first city in the world to implement participatory budgeting as part of public policy and did so against a backdrop of high levels of inflation, corruption and poverty. The model developed in Brazil is known as the classic model and it is from these origins that participatory budgeting has been developed in the UK. The key features of the Porto Alegre model of participatory budgeting are:
Residents involved in priority setting and budgeting decisions.
People given the skills to participate.
Annual cycle of budget, priorities review and planning.
Start by thinking small with budgets.
Budget matrices link areas of need to citizen choices.
Open and transparent process.
But the UK experience of participatory budgeting is different to that of Brazil. The development of the Community Empowerment agenda can be traced back to 2006 and David Miliband, who outlined the vision of double devolution. More recently, in 2008, the UK Government released Participatory Budgeting: A Draft National Strategy - Giving more people a say in local spending using the following definition: Participatory budgeting engages people in taking decisions on the spending priorities for a defined public budget in their local area. This means engaging residents and community groups to discuss spending priorities, make spending proposals, and vote on them, as well as giving people a role in the scrutiny and monitoring of the process. The government announced a total of 34 pilot areas covering urban, rural, north and south areas within different governance arrangements and authorities.
Some examples:
Salford City Council established a series of community committees made up of elected members and representatives of community groups who can then vote on proposals. In one participatory budgeting event in spring 2007 almost 50 local people attended the community committee and voted on a series of proposed schemes using £100,000 of highways funding.
In Newcastle they have branded their participatory budgeting process U decide and are running a pilot scheme in three political wards targeting environmental improvements. This has involved local residents submitting ideas for improvements online and scoring proposals at participatory budgeting events with the top rating projects prioritised against the amount of money available.
Norfolk County Council has agreed to allocate £200,000 via participatory budgeting in support of its local area agreement targets.
Finally, the London Borough of Harrow launched an open budget initiative whereby elements of the budget were opened up to public debate around priorities.
Outcomes:
Evidence on the direct impact of participatory budgeting upon communities in the UK is currently limited, though examples do exist. The Salford experience was successful in attracting a high number of people (if not a representative sample) and in terms of the level of partnership working. However, the more important learning will come from the impact participatory budgeting has upon on service delivery and any resultant benefits to local communities. Although research is emerging on the implementation of participatory budgeting within the national pilot areas, much more needs to be done to establish best practice to support other local areas.