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.

That is why Alan Budge and Jez Hall first produced this guidance for using PB to improve tenant engagement within Social Housing in 2019. The report has been refreeshed in 2025 to fix broken links, update content and refect our current branding.

The trend towards greater engagement and consultation is common across the UK Housing sector. But not always without some very real tensions, and too often in a reactive way.

This paper argues that PB helps build trust and enables better conversations. Tenants deserve to be given genuine choices as to what existing rents are spent on, what is ‘affordable’ and how any increases might be spent.