Budgeting Together: Lessons from Brazil for Scotland’s Participatory Future

Paul Nelis form the PB Scotland Team (SCDC) reflects on the changing nature of PB in Scotland and how it has strong parallels with the original PB model developed in Brazil in the 1980s.

Over the last 5 months SCDC has been speaking to PB practitioners in the statutory and voluntary sector and this research suggests that Participatory Budgeting (PB) in Scotland is moving to a Mainstream PB model.

While small grants PB, once a vibrant community-led approach, appears to be in declined due to budget constraints and the impact of COVID-19, Mainstream PB is now the dominant approach mainly within local authorities. This model often focuses on involving communities in decisions about existing services and budgets, rather than allocating new funds. Many councils are engaging residents in conversations about priorities for services such as parks, roads and infrastructure.

Like the original PB model in Porto Alegre (Brazil), Scotland’s PB movement is shifting towards embedding community voices in core decision-making processes. The challenge ahead is ensuring PB remains meaningful and sustainable, transforming local governance into a truly participatory system and the PB approach is not simply ‘better community engagement’ but meaningful involvement in budgeting decisions. It also needs to be a widespread approach rather than small pilot projects with in one or two departments.

Small Grants PB

Before the pandemic, PB was expanding across Scotland, particularly within the community and voluntary sector. Budgets from the Scottish Government supported joyful, engaging events where community groups pitched ideas to their peers, hoping to secure votes and small grants, often a few hundred to a thousand pounds, to deliver projects that made their services more relevant to local needs.

COVID-19, however, had a significant impact. Restrictions meant people could no longer gather in person to vote on priorities, and online tools for PB such as Zoom, Teams, and voting platforms were still in their infancy and practitioners were valiantly trying to figure out how to use them for idea generation, voting and communication.  As we continue to emerge from these challenges with the aim to ‘build back better’, limited budgets, support and training for the community and voluntary sector are restricting this approach.

The Rise of Mainstream PB

As small grants PB becomes increasingly rare, Mainstream PB has emerged as the most common model in Scotland. Done well It enables direct participation of people in local budget decisions, resource allocation, and service design.  Rather than allocating new funds, councils are often engaging communities in conversations about existing services and asking them to identify priorities. Examples include consulting residents on improvements to local parks in Renfrewshire. And Roads departments inviting the public to decide where zebra crossings or dropped curbs should be placed.  The budget remains within departmental control, but the conversation shifts to community engagement and how services can best meet community needs. Increasingly, council departments are identifying which parts of their services or budgets can be incorporated into PB processes.

Learning from Porto Alegre

While the decline of small grants PB is disappointing, Mainstream PB shares strong parallels with the original PB model developed in Porto Alegre (Brazil) in the 1980s, a process that became a global benchmark for participatory democracy. The Porto Alegre model was run on a yearly cycle with citizens attending open neighbourhood assemblies to discuss local needs.  Communities elected delegates who represented them in further discussions, these delegates participated in thematic assemblies e.g. health, education, transport to refine proposals.  Specific proposals were discussed at a regional level and voted on. A council composed of elected citizen representatives and government officials finalized the budget. And the budget was determined based on criteria such as population size, social needs, and previous investment levels.

Key features of the Porto Alegre model have close parallels with Mainstream PB in Scotland, including:

• Community Involvement: Citizens set priorities for public funds, ensuring their needs are addressed.

• Structured Processes: A staged approach where proposals are developed and voted on by the wider public.

• Direct Decision-Making: Emphasis on citizen engagement and local priorities.

• Addressing inequalities – ensuring less heard voices have an opportunity to have their say about services that affect them.

Although political support for PB in Brazil declined, the model continues to inspire participatory governance approaches worldwide, including in France, Portugal, Scandinavia, Poland, and the United States.

Mainstream PB, if done well and is widespread within and across councils, offers a powerful opportunity to embed community voices directly into the heart of local decision-making when effectively supported and resourced. By shifting the focus from one-off funding pots to influencing core services and budgets, PB is becoming more than a democratic experiment, it can be a practical tool for transparency, accountability, and collaboration within local authority areas.

Of course, Mainstream PB has its challenges – Practitioners are telling us that budgets are getting increasingly tighter within councils. There is a reduction in dedicated staff for PB and a reported variable buy in from decision makers and politicians at a local and national level.

The Future of PB in Scotland

There is a real opportunity for Mainstream PB to continue to grow and play a significant role in Scotland’s participative democracy by:

• Enabling local decision-making about budgets

• Giving communities a real say in spending

• Creating a positive process focused on shaping budgets collaboratively, not involving the community in making cuts

• Moving away from top-down, behind-closed-doors budgeting

• Enhancing democratic participation and transparency

Dialogue and engagement across communities and sectors which builds understanding of community priorities and involves the community in budgeting is more important than ever before to build a cohesive society.  But that doesn’t happen without effort.

Participatory Budgeting has the capacity to reach and engage individuals and communities that other methods of community engagement do not reach.  But like any initiative it requires the investment of time, resource, skill and joint endeavour. Whether you’re a community group, a local authority, or an interested citizen, your voice matters.  Participatory Budgeting can and should be about shaping the future together.

So, while significant challenges remain about how public services are delivered in Scotland, it’s crucial that we continue to support the fundamental principles of participation and shared decision-making.

Learn more about PB and how you can take part by visiting SCDC’s PB resources.

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