Speakers

From across continents, we brought together some brilliant speakers and panellists to share their experiences of carrying out participatory budgeting and other democratic innovations.

Martin Johnstone

Participatory Budgeting is part of the way we can get ourselves out of a mess, by giving power back into the hands of people and asking them to decide. Martin first learned of PB 20 years ago and his job is to help bring together wisdom from 170 people, from Scotland and around the world. 

Cit Lennox, 

When young people in Pollok were told that they can have responsibility for designing how £200,000 is spent as part of a Glasgow City Council demonstrator scheme, their first reaction was ‘huh? What’s the catch?’. But young people are capable and have the right to make decisions. It’s just that no one had us before. In Pollok, 20 young people came together to form a citizen’s panel, which has since become a youth engagement forum.  These young people are ordinary people, doing extraordinary things. 

See an interview with Cit here.  Read about Pollok’s PB process here

Josh Lerner 

Delivered a wonderfully provocative presentation, asking us, what counts as PB. For Josh, this is a political decision that really matters because what we decide counts as PB matters.  During the Regan presidency, due to budget cuts, vegetables were removed from school dinners but reclassified tomato sauce as a vegetable. We can’t risk mislabeling budget consultations or engagement as Participatory Budgeting. Consultations without decision making is not PB because we don’t get to decide. 

“What matters about PB is real power, not asking people what they think, but letting them decide.  People know when they don’t have real power.”

Josh’s advice to our practice in Scotland is to keep a focus on keeping fidelity to what counts as PB, what impact PB is having, and what we should properly measure. 

Josh explained the role of the Global PB Hub, and told us that they would be taking back learning from Scotland on the importance of national government creating a supportive infrastructure for PB and to explore the development of a global PB charter, drawing inspiration from the PB Charter for Scotland

Paul Johnston

Was encouraged by the energy, numbers and scope of people at the conference and delighted to hear Scotland being described as the engine of for PB in the UK. Paul commended the PB Charter for Scotland and a key pillar for PB in Scotland.  

Why does the Scottish Government support PB? Scotland’s National Performance Framework describes why we are engaged in public services, that includes tackling poverty by sharing opportunities, wealth and power more equally. PB is one key way to do this.

Workshops

We’ve had morning and afternoon workshops bringing together with loads of experiences and ideas around PB in Scotland and across the globe.

Mainstreaming PB in Scottish Local Authorities

Facilitated by: COSLA and with contributions from Fife Council and …

Learning from young people 

Facilitated by: Young Scot Contributions from Moray Council and North Ayrshire Council 

My key point from the Learning from young people workshop: 

To be fair and inclusive, PB needs to think carefully about how to best involve young people. Similarly, PB with young people should be designed with inclusion in mind. See the PB Charter’s Fair and inclusive principle for more.

Young people and young people’s organisations have blazed a trail for vibrant community-led PB processes across Scotland. Facilitated by Young Scot with help from Moray Council, this workshop focused on what works and what lessons can be learned by the community at large. Discussion mainly covered how PB with young people involves all young people. Participants agreed that, to be fair and inclusive, PB needs to think carefully about how to best involve young people. Similarly, PB with young people should be designed with inclusion in mind. See the PB Charter’s Fair and inclusive principle for more.

Co-producing good PB with communities 

Facilitated by PB Scotland and with contributions by Spirit of the Gorbals and Homeless Network Scotland

PB Charter:

• The Charter is a useful tool to guide good practice and ensure that the core principles of PB are in place.

• PB and the PB Charter will ensure that communities are sustainable by supporting smaller organisations in a transparent and fair way.

Gorbals Ideas Fund:

• Communities should design the PB process from the start – that way they get to set the parameters for the themes the PB will address from the ground up

• Individuals should be able to submit ideas for funding, not just constituted groups

• We need investment in the capacity of local organisations to support and deliver PB

 Homeless Network Scotland:

• We need to demonstrate the impact of PB in schools and get feedback from teachers

• If mainstream PB processes lead to ‘surprises’ how will local authorities respond? 

• Making decisions on how voting should happen should always include those who will participate in the voting event

Building Dialogue and Deliberation

Facilitated by Oliver Escobar with contributions by Aberdeenshire Council and Glasgow City Council

Dialogue is important, talk without action may be called toothless but action without talk is mindless. 

Building dialogue and deliberation is about increasing the quality of the conversations within a PB process.  We should bring people together in dialogue, deliberate and then vote because better conversations lead to better decisions.

A more deliberative democracy supports public decisions based on evidence, conversations and reasoning rather than decisions that are based on power and money.

Participants deliberated on how we can contribute to greater deliberation within our practice and prioritised: 

• The need for fantastic facilitators, in every community, and from the community as well as working for the community.

• Valuing and supporting lived experience is equally as a source of evidence

• An intentional approach, making time to plan, organize and resource to build in dialogue and deliberation. 

• Naming power imbalances, addressing it to build a welcoming space. 

• Being positive about what is great in a community, what assets exist and build trusting relationships. 

International panel

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Afternoon workshops

Let's Get Digital 

Led by Annie Cook Democratic Society, continuations from Giovanni Allegretti, Josh Lerner? PB pilot councils?     

What place for voting?

Led by Kelly McBride with provocations from COSLA, PB partners and PB Scotland the workshop discussed and shared reflections on voting and whether a vote is required for a process to be properly described as PB.  

Discussions were wide ranging, including the importance of combining mini-publics with PB processes, and holding mini-publics before and after a vote within the community.  Additional routes to share power were discussed including co-producing PB process with communities.   

Tackling inequalities and PB.   

We need to ensure that PB is not just a majority game. We need to make sure that minority voices are heard and people are involved.  Flexibility and adjustment as its important to make an extra effort and try our best to include the whole community.

Don’t take participation for granted! 

Global perspectives of PB

Facilitated by SCDC and Clara Bois PB Project 

With contributions from Giovanni Allegretti, Stefano Stortone and Celina Su, 

Learning from evaluation

Facilitated by Angela O’Hagan and Paul Teedon, Glasgow Caledonian University with a contribution from Glasgow Centre for Population Health

Key point:

To be transformational, PB has to ensure that communities shape the process from the start. Community-led PB also builds the capacity of communities to hold larger agency-led PB to account.

What do evaluations of PB in Scotland tell us about practice, policy and impact? Facilitated by Glasgow Caledonian University with a contribution from Glasgow Centre for Population Health, this workshop explored what evaluation work has been carried out and what lessons we can take away – and apply to our work. Discussion focused on how to ensure PB going forward addresses inequality. It was agreed that, in order to be transformational, PB has to ensure that communities shape the process from the start. The further point was made that community-led PB also builds the capacity of communities to hold larger agency-led PB to account.

 WHAT IS THIS FOR?

• Should there be an award scheme for best practice in PB for elected members? 

• How can we set up/foster relationships between local authorities/municipalities in different countries to make PB a real global movement? 

• How can we make PB sustainable through electoral cycles? 

• International learning and evidence helps legitimacy at country level

• We need to amplify the impacts of PB in areas like recovery, social care, prisons – make it relevant to people working in other areas of public service, not just democracy

• We need to share tried and tested methods, tools and resources – no point in re-inventing wheels