2022 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"
16th Edition
North Lanarkshire Council has a first-rate record of increasing citizen participation levels. Participatory Budgeting initiatives with our communities has been crucial in achieving this.
From 2014-2018 we carried out several initiatives. Each consisted of small budgets (up to £10,000) and helped inform future events. In 2019, we delivered an ambitious initiative in Motherwell, Wishaw and Shotts areas – culminating in 10,500 people voting (online and offline) on how to spend £500,000. Local people aged 8+ participated and the positive impact enabled future delivery of thematic initiatives to complement place-based PB.
Since 2020 we have engaged communities to deliver PB on health, careers and young people themes. PB has empowered young people to vote for the first time and has enabled isolated individuals to be effectively supported when deciding on proposals they considered most important.
PB ensured that:
Community empowerment is our most important objective when delivering PB, enabling us to help communities:
To achieve higher levels of equality in terms of participation and,
To improve the quality of public decision-making through the mechanisms of participatory democracy
At the outset of each initiative, we established steering groups consisting of local people supported by Council staff. Groups included young people, older people, carers and councillors who decided specific PB activity based on local need. As delivery has progressed, we have adapted offline and online communication methods to ensure greater community involvement – from initial planning until completion stages.
Offline voting utilised local/national election ballot boxes, highlighting the importance we placed on PB voting. We used various online voting methods, including Microsoft Teams Forms, Survey Monkey and Scottish Government’s CONSUL platform – further reducing barriers to participation.
Through contracted works, we received both financial and non-financial Community Benefits, with PB processes adopted so local people best decided how benefits were allocated. We ensured involvement from ‘seldom heard voices’ such as carers, the deaf community and older people in our PB delivery. We did this by organising information sessions with community organisations who then hosted ballot boxes to maximise voting opportunities for people usually unable to influence decision making processes.
Our PB evaluation and monitoring activity was established from the outset. Steering groups met to establish baseline information, then considered how best to take forward each initiative. Thereafter groups met to clarify how delivery was progressing, adapting provision based on communities’ needs. Finally a post-project meeting determined ways to build on successes and how to implement learning gathered for future initiatives.
To ensure progress with young people, we carried out online feedback sessions in schools when Covid-19 restrictions were in place. This enabled information gathered to influence future PB planning, whilst considering other active citizenship and democracy issues.
Seldom heard voices, such as carers, have since become involved in local and national consultation exercises after initial PB involvement, and young people want to decide what happens in their school and wider community.
Finally, we now have improved PB governance in place with updated proposal forms, guidelines and criteria documentation ensuring a positive experience for North Lanarkshire communities.
More information:
https://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/
htps://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/your-community/participatory-budgeting
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