It’s the season to be celebrating with our friends, neighbours and families. As we wrap up another year ( and it’s the 10th Christmas since we formed Shared Future CIC) we have been reflecting on what has changed, and why the idea of a shared future remains close to our heart. Together we are stronger.
SFCIC News
Latest updates on our projects, including reports, case studies and blogs. You can also search the menu on this page to find items of particular interest.
Participatory Budgeting and Social Enterprise: Latest research report by SFCIC
What links Participatory Budgeting and Social Enterprise? Through reflecting on long-term qualitative learning of Participatory Budgeting in the UK, viewed through a social economy lens, we found that Participatory Budgeting, in and of itself, stimulates the development of new cooperatives and sustained social action.
Leeds Climate Change Citizens’ Jury November 2019.
‘What should Leeds do about the emergency of climate change?’ This was the question that 25 randomly selected residents from across the Leeds city region agreed to thrash out over nine sessions between September and November 2019. Their bold recommendations make fascinating reading; taking back control of the local bus services into public ownership, the halting of local airport expansion, retrofitting of housing through local social enterprises and more.
Does Participatory Budgeting always require a vote?
There is a very real desire to make Participatory Budgeting more deliberative and thoughtful. One of the concerns about voting is that it doesn’t force people to think through the options. That PB needs more deliberation. Nevertheless Jez Hall of PB Partners/Shared Future CIC argues that the vote is crucial for legitimacy and trust within a PB processes.
Deliberative Commissioning, 2nd July, Manchester: Resource page
At our free afternoon event on Tuesday 2nd July in Central Manchester, running during National Co-Production Week (1st-5th July 2019) we offered an opportunity for Health and Social Care professionals to learn about citizens inquiries, juries and assemblies and explore their increasing relevance to person-centred health care and towards supporting effective co-production. Download the event resources on this page
Reframing care for our world as participatory people-led politics
“The natural world is being destroyed and it is a moral imperative to preserve and reconstitute as much of it as possible as soon as possible.” In this blog Jez Hall discusses how re-framing the debate on global warming is about how we build a fairer, greener, and political ‘shared future’. One where dialogue, social action and a people powered democracy is our new normal.
Participatory Budgeting and Climate Change: Our Money, Our Planet events
PB Partners are delivering a series of free events across the UK in response to the Climate Change emergency. Participatory Budgeting is an effective way for local authorities, and other statutory bodies to respond to this existential threat, and mobilise and enable communities take action themselves.
Common Values: What links Participatory Budgeting, Cooperatives and Social Enterprise?
How do the values of cooperation, social enterprise and democratic local governance link? How can we engage communities better, promote democracy and social action, and thereby effect real long-term change? Does Participatory Budgeting encourage a culture of cooperative and social enterprise. And if so, is that because of underlying common values? What do you think?
Beyond the ballot: How citizens can lead the climate change conversation
Over recent months, as climate change has been propelled into the political mainstream, there has been an upsurge in interest in the role of deliberative processes such as Citizens’ Assemblies and Citizens’ Juries, too. An Assembly is a key demand of Extinction Rebellion, for example. Will politicians act or just nod? In this blog Pete Bryant and Rebecca Willis consider how getting the conditions right makes action more likely.
Our Money, Our Planet. Participatory Budgeting and the Green New Deal
Participatory Budgeting(PB) enables people to make their community better, starting with issues that concern us all. The biggest concern we face as a society is climate change. In this new blog Shared Future CIC’s Alan Budge connects PB and climate change.
Participatory Budgeting within Social Housing. Ideas for better engaging with tenants and residents groups
Housing Associations, Cooperatives, Tenant and Arm’s Length Management Organisations are uniquely well placed to initiate and lead participatory budgeting (PB), as they often already have well structured tenant engagement processes, and much of their income comes directly from rents. PB is an ideal way to take that engagement further, and respond to the interests, concerns and needs of their residents and the wider community.