Watch: Community Digital PB Developer workshop

On the 8th June 2021 Demsoc and SCDC brought together PB Scotland members and developers of online democracy tools to discuss how they can be used for PB processes in Scotland.

• You can watch a recording of this session here.

• There’s also an FAQ document on digital PB tools which is being updated progressively.

The workshop

The workshop was hosted on Zoom and offered a space for 5 digital tool developers to present their digital tools and ways in which they could be used for participatory budgeting at a community level (community PB in this sense is often implemented on a much smaller scale than at a local authority or regional level). Each developer had 10-15 minutes to present their tool and some ideas on how it has been used, followed by a broader Q&A discussion with Scottish community PB practitioners. 

Through the workshop we aimed to:

• Provide Scottish community PB practitioners with more knowledge and understanding about the different options of tools that they could use to do citizen engagement and participation for PB in their communities and how they can access and use them. 

• To host a space for Q&A and discussion with tools developers on some of the challenges and opportunities for communities in using digital tools to do PB (for instance, potential for co-design, shared learning or sharing a tool across communities & concerns around security, GDPR & costs to procure a tool). 

What is this about?

Democratic Society are working together with Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC) to explore what digital participatory budgeting (PB) might look like for communities in the future. The research is funded by the Scottish Government and will support communities to highlight the needs, challenges and opportunities for running a digital PB process.  The research will conclude at the end of June 2021 and will map out a set of digital support resources tested with communities and a set of recommendations, all of which will be included in a final report.  We will also be establishing a Digital PB Learning Network which will further progress and develop our learning to ensure communities have the knowledge, skills and confidence to use digital tools to support PB going forward.

Our goals for this work are to:

• Explore the challenges and opportunities for communities to access digital tools for PB.

• Establish a ‘Digital PB Learning Network’ for communities as part of PB Scotland.

• Create resources that support communities to use digital tools for PB and provide guidance on the latest developments and design, including a digital tools appraisal, guidelines and templates.

• Support and facilitate communities in making recommendations for long-term, continuous community access to digital tools, including opportunities and learning for CONSUL, Scotland’s national pilot PB citizen participation tool.

• Inform the development of a digital engagement infrastructure that takes into account communities needs and supports the Scottish Government’s ambitions for participatory budgeting and community empowerment.