Participatory budgeting, community engagement and impact on public services in Scotland

Abstract

Since the early 1980s the concept of Participatory Budgeting (PB) has developed in various forms internationally and subsequently has been adopted and adapted into local policy and political contexts. Yet, the underlying objective of PB remains the same, to empower local communities to have a direct say in how and where public funds can be used to shape public services and their delivery (Gomez et al., 2016).In seeking to integrate community participation into local resource allocation decision-making, via this policy, requires a transformation of the relationship between citizen and state. In the implementation and delivery of PB, local government must engage in equality analysis so to meet the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). Thereby, this paper aims to combine the framing of mainstreaming equalities through the PSED in the development of PB activities.This article contends that the institutional engagement and analysis required, to effectively integrate the requirements of equality legislation into PB processes, requires a transformational approach. Equality processes appear to exist in parallel with PB activity rather than being operationalized as integral to the objectives and character of PB activity at local level. This article proposes that PB and the PSED share a transformative intent and potential but that this is undermined by siloed thinking on equalities reflective of compliance and enduring discriminatory behavior and practices. The paper concludes with propositions for extending the conceptual links between equality and community empowerment, and thereby participation in local financial decision making in practice.

Exploring elitisation of participatory budgeting in a post-Soviet democracy: evidence from a Ukrainian municipality

“…Therefore, PB has failed to live up to expectations and engender benefits to citizens by promoting emancipation, equality and effectiveness. Our findings resonate with the argument that the dissemination of PB in EEs may not necessarily contribute to ensuring social justice (Baiocchi and Ganuza, 2014;Baiocchi, 2015;O'Hagan et al, 2020), and that the elites could either capture or control (Fedozzi and Martins, 2015;Sheely, 2015;L€ uchmann et al, 2018;Waheduzzaman et al, 2018) the PB process, by taking advantage of poor governance and accountability mechanisms.…”

“…Therefore, PB has failed to live up to expectations and engender benefits to citizens by promoting emancipation, equality and effectiveness. Our findings resonate with the argument that the dissemination of PB in EEs may not necessarily contribute to ensuring social justice (Baiocchi and Ganuza, 2014;Baiocchi, 2015;O´Hagan et al, 2020), and that the elites could either capture or control (Fedozzi and Martins, 2015;Sheely, 2015;Lüchmann et al, 2018;Waheduzzaman et al, 2018) We argue that it takes time to bring about effective changes in society and democracy building is a lengthy and complex process. Indeed, approaches like PB, with its accompanying slogans such as 'operationalising democracy at the grassroots level' could have a normative impact on people's desire and aspirations to embed themselves in the political process and make their voices heard.…”

“The biggest barrier is to inclusion itself”: the experience of citizenship for adults with mental health problems

“…Despite such uncertainty, Scotland can be considered as having a progressive policy environment particularly receptive to ideas of citizenship and inclusion for individuals and communities experiencing marginalisation (Anonymous et al, 2019). It has its own unique political landscape where public spending per head of population is greater than in England and Wales (O'Hagan et al, 2019;Wallace, 2019). There has been a strong shift towards health and social care integration to promote joint working and a holistic approach to care and service provision (Pearson & Watson, 2018).…”

Policy actors’ perceptions of public participation to tackle health inequalities in Scotland: a paradox?

“…Participants' perceptions on the merits of different approaches to public participation mirrors academic discussions of aggregative, deliberative and participatory methodologies (see, for example, Baker et al [33], O'Hagan et al [84] and Parkinson [85]). Aggregative approaches are generally silent when it comes to understanding rationales and reasoning while deliberative and participatory approaches raise questions around representativeness and diversity.…”