The PB Unit produced a number of toolkits before it closed in 2012. However most are still available.
Access toolkits and guides using the links below.
Participatory Budgeting Toolkit (2010)
The PB toolkit has over 150 pages of case studies, tools, resources and information. It was produced by the Participatory Budgeting Unit and based on learning from many experiences of PB. With the closure of the PB Unit in 2012 the toolkit was made freely available.
The toolkit is set out into three sections:
- Section A: The PB Context
- Section B: PB processes
- Section C: Tools
Section A has refreshed and updated information about PB including new chapters looking at PB around the world and the different models of PB in the UK.
Section B is an entirely new section to the toolkit. It looks at the generic PB process and provides good practice case studies for each stage with accompanying matrices to chart development. There are now nine new case studies in this section.
Section C has lots of tools and resources from twelve different initiatives, plus extra resources that the PB Unit has developed.
The focus of the toolkit is primarily on the community grants pot model, although includes case studies from different models such as mainstreaming in Tower Hamlets, partnership approaches in Norfolk and utilising Section 106 monies in East Devon. The community grants pot model is the most common approach in the UK, so most resources and information are about this model.
We appreciate that there is growing interest in other models and so we have included some case studies and resources which look at a more strategic approach and at improving budget literacy.
This toolkit is currently available only as a PDF download.
- Download the Participatory Budgeting Toolkit (8mg PDF)
Guidance on community led PB (2013)
As part of the Community First Programme, that provided small local community panels with small sums to support community initiatives, the Community Development Foundation commissioned PB partners to write a PB how to guide for a community based organisation wanting to run its own PB project.
This step-by-step guide shows you how to enable local residents to chose which projects receive funding using a Participatory Budgeting grant making approach
In 2012 the Welsh Government published a toolkit on using PB with young people in Schools. When it was commissioned in 2009 the Welsh Government said "Participatory budgeting represents an opportunity for local authorities and their partners to involve young people in making decisions on how to spend local budgets affecting them. The Welsh Government feel very strongly that children and young people should be given the opportunities to be involved in making budgetary decisions on issues that affect them. These resources will go some way to achieving this."
More than 2 years in development, the PB Unit and the International Centre for Participation Studies published its guide to PB initiatives evaluating their own projects including tools to support the evaluation. The research originated from practitioners asking for support and guidance around evaluation.
The document is an editable PDF, which is navigable within the document to flick between overviews and details, guidance and tools, and back again. There are over 90 pages in the toolkit, more than half being templates, tools and tables for pracititioners to adapt.
- You can download the toolkit at PB Unit self evaluation Toolkit (3mb PDF)
Rural Action Yorkshire: Town and Parish PB Toolkit and Videos
Rural Action Yorkshire have produced a toolkit and DVD on implementing PB in town and parish council areas. It draws on the work of several councils in Yorkshire and Humber.
Town and Parish councils are quite unique in that they are non-statutory so they are directly created by the people they serve. Often councillors aren’t aligned to a particular party, and they have the ability to raise their own precepts. They are closer to their communities and understand better what needs to change to improve it
Parish councillors frequently complain about how difficult it is to get their community involved in the parish council’s business. Major planning proposals, wind farms, waste incinerators and such like are usually pretty effective in filling parish meetings with members of the public anxious to know how they might be affected, but otherwise, it is often said, no-one is interested. PB demonstrates that this isn’t the case, but that people want more of a say, rather than less.
- Download the Town and Parish PB toolkit (3mbPDF)
- View the Toolkit videos on Youtube:
Part 1
Part 2