I’m sure that if there isn’t a book out there called ‘Participatory Budgeting for Dummies’, there soon will be! This increasingly popular approach involves the public in decisions about public budgets. It’s been used in countries such as Brazil for over 20 years, and is now used in areas of London, Chicago, New York and other major cities.
Voting (including on mobiles) plays a significant role in the original models, and in many others such as New York. Alongside goes a community development aspect that ensures transparency through encouraging proposals from wards or suburbs. You can see the proposals made by different communities in Geraldton WA, for consideration by the participatory budgeting jury. Australia’s newDemocracy has also put a lot of effort into working with local government on budgeting juries, such as at Canada Bay in Sydney.
What does all this activity mean for those wishing to put a jury in place? From evaluations of previous citizen juries, there are a few key considerations:
- buy in from political decision-makers for a long term commitment to the approach – The Lord Mayor of City of Melbourne, Robert Doyle spoke on this at a recent Future Leaders forum
- clarity about the model of participatory budgeting you want to use, there are a number of options
- realistic lead times to get preparation in place – organising in a rush with a too tight budget can lead to loss of thoroughness and hence credibility.
District 39 voters at Project Expo, New York