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
News
Oor Bit – Places and Spaces in Fife: The results are in!
10 principles for fiscal transparency: A GIFT to open government?
There are many reason to use Participatory Budgeting. Such as to inspire citizens to take greater responsibility within their community, or to strengthen the democratic mandate of elected officials. A significant additional reason is to promote open and transparent government, at all levels. As a piece of municipal ‘graffiti’ in Brazil, the home of Participatory… 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
A Process of Growth: The Expansion of Participatory Budgeting in the United States and Canada in 2015 – 16
A new report by Public Agenda explains how over 101,000 residents of the USA and Canada have been involved in deciding on over $60m of public funds through PB. In "A Process of Growth:The Expansion of Participatory Budgeting in the United States and Canada in 2015 – 16″ they explain how this is happening. Some… 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
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
From small idea to big change: challenging domestic abuse and hate crime through Participatory Budgeting
A blog by Dr Andrew Fisher of MutualGain, who ran the PB and community safety workshop at Engage, Think Do! Two weeks ago I presented a workshop at the International PB conference on the use of PB in relation to community safety. This is one of those subjects where, on a Friday afternoon, you… Read More
Participatory Budgeting in West Pokot: Hearing the voices of women
A film about participatory budgeting in Kenya was first shown to an international audience at the ‘lived experiences’ session of the Engage, Think, Do! PB fringe conference held in Edinburgh in October 2016. The film showed how PB worked in West Pokot in 2016. It looked at the history of this innovative process in that… Read More
Should sustainability be a factor within Participatory Budgeting
"Should sustainability be a factor in PB" is a blog by Jez Hall, reflecting on discussions on PB at the Lived Experience workshop of Engage, Think, Do!, and the presentations from Kenya and elsewhere on PB at scale. What does the famous picture of a load of sailors on a raft have to do with… Read More
