Participatory budgeting (PB) allows communities to be directly involved in decisions on the priorities and spending of public budgets. In Edinburgh, PB has been implemented since 2010. As an approach it can offer significant benefits in increasing community participation, improving the effectiveness of public spending and promoting greater community cohesion.
Scotland
What’s happening in Participatory Budgeting across Scotland
D-day for the Carrick group funding project is approaching
North Carrick groups can grab their share of an £80,000 funding pot. The £80,000 fund is awarded from the Scottish Government’s Community Choices Fund, which has been set up to support Participatory Budgeting (PB), a process which allows local people to make decisions on local spending priorities. If you live, work or volunteer in North… Read More
Tackling Islamophobia in Edinburgh: Building bridges not walls?
‘Shared Vision – Your Decision’ is an Edinburgh based initiative which enables local people to decide how public money is spent in eradicating Islamophobia and associated prejudice behaviour. Police Scotland, the City of Edinburgh Council and The Scottish Government have made a total of £40,000 available as part of their ongoing commitment to addressing Islamophobia across Edinburgh…. Read More
Oor Bit – Places and Spaces in Fife: The results are in!
THE results of Fife Council’s “Oor Bit” consultation are in. Over 1,400 people from the Cowdenbeath area have been voting on their favourite local projects as part of a bid to involve the community in deciding local spending priorities. And now 14 projects close to people’s hearts will be funded to the tune of £250,000…. 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
Young People undertake Participatory Budgeting in North Ayrshire
North Ayrshire Council website has announced it will launch one of Scotland’s largest ever online participatory budgeting exercises exclusively for young people. From Wednesday 2nd November, around 21,000 Young people in North Ayrshire will be able to use Young Scot’s online voting platform to allocate £60,762 to youth projects in their local area. The funding… Read More
Engage, Think, Do!… the conference report page
We’ve created this page to pull together a set of post conference blogs, presentations and resources. We had a great time at Engage, Think, Do! and want to share the love. Presentations: A highlight of the many powerpoint presentations given on the day (all PDF format): International Learning workshop presentation by Reema Patel, RSA Participatory… Read More
The Winner Takes It All? Opportunities for Mainstreaming Citizen Participation
The Winner Takes It All is a guest blog by Dr Andrew Fisher, who led the workshop on policing at Engage, Think, Do! international PB fringe conference in Edinburgh in October 2016. Last weeks International PB conference set the sights very high for next year. A fabulous venue, a great backdrop in Edinburgh and wonderful… Read More
Blog from the Small Grants and Mainstreaming workshops at Engage, Think, Do
This blog has been written by Alan Budge following our Engage, Think, Do conference 21st October 2016 SMALL GRANTS AND MAINSTREAM WORKSHOPS I had the pleasure of facilitating two ‘back to back’ workshops (as part of the ‘Do’ strand of the PB event in Edinburgh on Friday 21st October. ) Workshop 1, attended by about… Read More
Review of 1st Generation Participatory Budgeting in Scotland
A new paper reviewing the evidence about participatory budgeting processes in Scotland up to June 2016. Written by WhatWorks Scotland it examines the growth and development of the first generation of participatory budgeting in Scotland in order to generate insight to support the strategic and operational leadership and delivery of future participatory budgeting. Scotland has… Read More
