Participatory Budgeting

February 2011

Participatory budgeting is aprocess of democratic deliberation and decision-making, and a type ofparticipatory democracy, in which ordinary residents decide how to allocatepart of a municipal or public budget. Participatory budgeting allows citizensto identify, discuss, and prioritise public spending projects.

Participatory budgeting isusually characterised by several basic design features: identification ofspending priorities by community members, election of budget delegates to representdifferent communities, facilitation and technical assistance by publicemployees, local and higher level assemblies to deliberate and vote on spendingpriorities, and the implementation of local direct-impact community projects.

It has been suggested by manyacademics that participatory budgeting results in more equitable publicspending, higher quality of life, increased satisfaction of basic needs, greatergovernment transparency and accountability, increased levels of publicparticipation (especially by marginalised or poorer residents), and democraticand citizenship learning.

Participatory Budgeting isseen as important in achieving the government’s ‘big society’ agenda. Participatorybudgeting has become a key part of the Government’s drive to devolve more decisionson local services and facilities to local communities.

Participatory budgeting couldlead to more equitable spending, an increase in satisfaction of basic needs,greater government transparency and accountability in addition to a vastincrease in levels of public participation.

If the switch to participatorybudgeting is successful in the United Kingdom all these positive aspects willbe realised. However, in the United Kingdom this type of budgeting has only beentested on very small budgets in only a handful of areas and it remains to beseen if this can be implemented successfully on the large scale in Britain.

For full briefing paper pleaseclick here.