Journalist Stephanie Grimm speaks with Louise O’Kane of Community Places and Jez Hall of Shared Future CIC on behalf of the Buergerhaushalt website, on the past present and future for Participatory Budgeting in the UK. Buergerhaushalt is Germany’s online portal for participatory budgeting and related issues, to enable anyone interested to obtain basic information on… Read More
England
What's happening in Participatory Budgeting across England
PB Youth Accelerator: Erasmus+ Pan-European Research Project
PB Youth Accelerator is the working title of a new initiative looking to collate evidence of participatory budgeting involving young people in the community and in schools. This two year research partnership consists of 5 partners from 3 countries. It is lead by Polish foundation Soclab, with collaborators from Field of Dialogue in Poland and… Read More
Speke Up – Participatory Budgeting in Merseyside 2019
Dr Andrew Fisher connects strength based engagement and participatory budgeting. Find out what happened at Speke Up – Tackling Serious and Organised Crime Through Strengths Based Engagement in Speke Merseyside, a project led by MutualGain. “There is evidence that suggests a strong correlation between low social capital and high levels of crime and disorder. High… Read More
I got goosebumps: Community Voting Day in Haringey
"I thought it was very very interesting, I was excited, I got goosebumps hearing about the projects and I thought this was an amazing thing to do." So said one of the participants in the "Community Voting day", held in Northumberland Park, Tottenham in 2017. Gayle Wallace, Director of G.W Training & Consultancy Ltd managed… Read More
Call for Sadiq Khan to create a PB budget for London
Len Duvall, Assembly Member for London and chair of the GLA oversight committee has called for Mayor Sadiq Khan to bring in a participatory budget for London. In an article on the MayorWatch website, (where it was reported that the public consultation on last year’s London budget drew just 12 responses, compared to Paris, that… Read More
Orchard projects in Leeds are thriving through Participatory Budgeting
Alan Thornton, project worker for Leeds Orchard Live, who are supported by Helping Britain Blossom describes how they used participatory grant-making to distribute £3000. Small scale funding perhaps, yet vital to promoting orchard groups in Leeds . "Leeds is a city with a growing ‘orchard-ing’ culture. And its growing through PB. On Saturday 14 January 2017,… Read More
Participatory funding radical grassroots groups through the Edge Fund
The Edge Fund uses a highly participatory process, evolved over 6 cycles, to make small grants to radical groups that might otherwise struggle to find funding. Like the African Rainbow Family, Manchester (who received £3,000). A group which is run by its 60 LGBTIQ asylum seekers and refugees members, with lived experiences of persecution based… Read More
Big Local Eastern Sheppey ‘You Decide’ Participatory Budgeting Event
On the 9th July 2016 the Big Local programme in East Sheppey ran a successful Participatory Budgeting event. The aims of the Eastern Sheppey Big Local You Decide event were more than simply to distribute Community Chest funding. By creating an event it was envisaged that Big Local would: Empower and build stronger communities Raise… Read More
Your say, your way in Luton funds £133,000 of community initiatives
Your Say, Your way is Luton Councils long running Participatory Budgeting initiative. It’s all about the council, police, Luton Clinical Commissioning Group, fire service and voluntary and community groups working together in a joined up, cost effective and supportive way to involve all citizens and respond to local issues by listening to your views. As… Read More
Small is beautiful: Buckfastleigh builds Participatory Budgeting from the ground up
In October 2016 Buckfastleigh Town Council held the first open deliberation in their Participatory Budgeting inspired process for engaging residents in the work of the Town Council. Often PB starts with a funding pot and a request for bids, which then go to a public vote. Yet too often these participatory grant making processes, which… Read More
