Your Local Budget

Unlocking the potential of participatory budgeting

Your Local Budget is a project supported by NESTA and delivered in association with the Big Society Network and Participatory Budgeting Unit. It will work with Local Authorities to understand more about how Participatory Budgeting can be developed to involve the public directly in decision making in order to make more effective decisions and to catalyse community involvement in generating different, better, cheaper ways of meeting local needs.

NESTA hopes to learn more about how to make the most out of Participatory Budgeting techniques through working with a group of leading Local Authorities who aim to push their practice a step further over the coming months. Nine pioneering projects have been selected to take part:

• Norfolk County Council
• Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council 
• Manton Community Alliance, in Nottinghamshire
• Herefordshire Association of Local Councils
• Dulverton Town Council, in Somerset 
• Sheffield City Council 
• Liverpool City Council
• London Borough of Tower Hamlets 
• Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead

The project also aims to connect with a wider network of practitioners in order to share learning across Local Authorities working on involvement in order to promote innovation and good practice.

If you would like to find out more about the project and how to get involved please contact Ed.Wallace@nesta.org.uk for further information.

What is Participatory Budgeting?

Participatory Budgeting is an approach to involving people in the decisions that affect their lives.  It is much more than consultation and puts real power in the hands of citizens. We are interested in exploring how it can be developed as a mechanism that ensures reductions in spending are better aligned with public priorities and values, and also to identify those untapped community assets which could provide alternative ways of meeting local needs.

Spending decisions have historically been made from the top down with limited public involvement. The combination of the current need for significant reductions in expenditure, with the government’s commitment to open data and ambition for people to take more ownership of what happens in their communities provides a real opportunity to change this.

NESTA has produced a publication which explores how to make the most of this opportunity and which examines the potential of Participatory Budgeting further to help achieve this. It also looks at some of the challenges around implementing it in local communities.

Download the Your Local Budget discussion paper