Mainstreaming Participatory Budgeting: Ideas for delivering PB at Scale is relevant to any organisation working in the UK with an interest in furthering democratic engagement at scale.

This briefing (originally produced in 2016, in response to Scotland’s Community Choices programme) aims to support public sector organisations wishing to develop ‘mainstream’ Participatory Budgeting(PB) initiatives.

It builds on learning about PB since 2000, when the first UK learning exchange to Porto Alegre took place.  Between 2008 and 2012 the Department of Communities and Local Government promoted a national PB strategy in England.  This paper include examples from that time, as well as more recent experiences in Scotland and elsewhere.

Within Scotland the Scottish Government has been raising awareness of PB since 2014 and setting the conditions for it to be delivered in a meaningful and sustainable way. For example, the Community Choices Fund has been a mechanism to support PB in Scotland.  It was first made available in 2016/17 to enable local people to make decisions on local spending priorities and contribute towards stronger local democracy.  Key to its objectives is to move towards larger scale PB, and that means mainstreaming.

PB therefore complements the objectives of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, which provides a legal framework to promote and encourage community empowerment and participation.  Creating new rights for community engagement and placing new duties on public authorities.

It will take time to reach PB at scale, but in order to do so you must begin somewhere.