Tackling Poverty through PB in Dumfries and Galloway

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In September of last year, Dumfries and Galloway Council agreed that £240,000 of Tackling Poverty funding would be allocated to worthy projects through PB processes.

Following the allocation, Dumfries and Galloway Council took the bold step of putting people with lived experience of poverty at the heart of the design and development of the PB process. This was done by forming the necessary Steering Group from volunteers who all had experience of poverty.

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The Steering Group comprise 8 volunteers from across the region who were supported by the Chair and Vice Chair of the Council’s communities Committee, who originally allocated the funding. Following several awareness raising and capacity building sessions, the group took full control of the design and delivery of the PB process. This involved the disaggregation of the £240,000 into 4 smaller geographic funding pots, design of the promotional materials to support the process, design of the voting process and agreement of the voting locations.

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Once the Steering Group had fully considered, deliberated and agreed on the process and promotion, a call was made to local community groups who could design and develop projects which would tackle the causes and effects of poverty if they attracted funding.

In total 68 projects proposals were submitted, with 63 going forward to public vote in March and April of 2018.

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Four local voting events were held which attracted 777 people along to engage directly with the project proposals and find out more about how they were looking to tackle the causes and effects of poverty. Of the 63 projects being voted on 20 received enough public votes to be awarded funding, with over 11,000 local people benefiting by the delivery of the projects.

Later this year, Dumfries and Galloway Council will be repeating it’s Tackling Poverty PB with another £250,000 being made available by the Communities Committee. A full evaluation of the first PB will be undertaken and all lessons learned employed when designing the next round.