Neighbourhood Community Budgets versus and
participatory budgeting
Mike Desborough – Neighbourhood Budgets
Department for Communities and Local Government
Larger Councils Conference – 21 March 2013
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Aims
• Inform: public service reform and Localism, focusing on
neighbourhood services
• Enthuse: what’s in it for you and your communities
• Support: now you’re interested, what you can do…
2
Public service reform at a time of
fiscal restraint
Inform
• Main focus of Government
is on promoting Growth
• But we’re also looking at
more effective and efficient
ways to commission public
services
• And giving communities
more control of their
neighbourhoods
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So, what does this mean
in practice?
Inform
• Getting the economy going again – including through house
building
• Reforming public services
– Creating more effective and efficient public services, from developing
economies of scale to very local tailoring of services in
neighbourhoods
• Pushing power away from Whitehall to the most appropriate level:
individuals, communities, local councils, other institutions,
professionals
• Promoting activities that build communities
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Community Rights (plus): Our Offer to
Communities
Inform
Neighbourhood
Planning
Greater influence over planning
for neighbourhoods
Community Right
to Build
New ways to gain planning
permission
Community Right
to Bid
Better opportunities to secure
community assets
Community Shares
Raising local funds for
community projects
Neighbourhood
Community
Budgets
Community influence over
public service design & spend
Parish Councils
Making it easier to set up town
and parish councils
Community Right
to Challenge
Community groups able to
apply to run local public
services
Progress: 510 Neighbourhood Plans +230 Assets listed +14 Challenge front
runners +12 NCB pilots + 100 Community Shares registrations per year
£64m package of expert support and grants
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Better tailoring of neighbourhood
services
Neighbourhood
Community
Budgets
Exploring ways to
achieve better, more
efficient local public
services through greater
community control and
co-design
Inform
• Neighbourhood Community
Budgets are part of the second
phase of the Local Government
Resource Review
• The concept is simple:
Local public services can be
more effective and efficient
where they are co-designed
and joined up by residents,
public service agencies and
others (e.g. VCS, local
business, etc)
• No blueprint…
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Neighbourhood Community Budgets –
supporting areas to redesign services
Type
Town
Councils
Neighbourhood
Ilfracombe
Haverhill
Cowgate, Kenton Bar &
Montague (Newcastle)
White City
Local
Authorities Norbiton
Sherwood (Tunbridge
Wells)
Shard End (Birmingham)
VCS
Queens Park
Little Horton (Bradford)
Poplar (Tower Hamlets)
Castle Vale (Birmingham)
Balsall Heath
(Birmingham)
Inform
Themes
Family services
Health & well being
Community assets
Housing
Worklessness
Skills and training
Local economic growth
Anti social behaviour
Youth services
Public realm
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Neighbourhood Community Budgets:
example
Inform
HAVERHILL, Suffolk
• £3.8m spent on public realm and youth services p.a.
• Community events to identify top 10 priorities for each.
• Residents and service providers designing new
approaches.
• ONE Haverhill board brings together three tiers of local
government, others services, business, VCS, faith …
• Budget alignment, not pooling.
• Everyone bringing something to the table.
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Participatory Budgeting
Inform
• A way of involving people in deciding how part of a public budget is
spent – often selecting from a range of project options.
• Enables local tailoring of services.
• Promotes greater transparency on what money is being spent on.
• Helps to bring people together, and connect them into local democratic
decision-making, promote social action, and develop community skills
and confidence.
• Around 150 schemes undertaken in England in half of the top level of
local authority areas.
• Often work at neighbourhood level, sometimes across a local authority.
• Has included local authority, health, police and housing budgets.
• Usually small-scale ‘discretionary’ / ‘top up’ budgets under £100k in total.
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Participatory Budgeting:
examples
Inform
From the Participatory Budgeting Unit’s website…
• “UDecide” Newcastle – people making decisions on £2.25 million of
projects including cleaner, safer, greener and youth services.
• Tower Hamlets – in 2009 and 2010 over £2.4 million pounds a year
were spent on local public services, including £150,000 decided by
young people through their school councils.
• “Voice Your Choice” in Eastfield, Scarborough – residents voted on
how £32,000 should be spent on projects addressing crime and
community safety issues.
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Participatory Budgeting and
Neighbourhood Community Budgets
PB
Inform
NCB
More power devolved…
and more energy, skills, time needed
•
•
•
•
SOME
budget / other public
consultations
public meetings –
‘you said, we did’
ward budgets for
Councillors
transparency –
budget / spend data
MORE
• community voting on
projects / priorities
• community based
activity
• non-statutory / non –
core services
•
•
•
•
MOST
service re-design /
co-design
pooling & aligning of
core budgets
better use of
community assets
neighbourhood
governance
So, bearing in mind the different levels of commitment and the nature of your
neighbourhood, think about what the right starting point is for you.
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What’s in it for me?
Enthuse
Local Councillors have a key role to play in helping their
communities think through what role they want to play…
Participatory Budgeting can …
• improve the transparency of
public administration and
expenditure
• encourage people to get
involved in the allocation and
oversight of public funds
• build trust between the
government and the population
• strengthen democratic culture
social fabric in communities
•
•
•
•
•
Neighbourhood Community
Budgets can do all this plus
…
better public services for less?
re-balance the relationship
between people and public
services
enable integrated approaches
to complex local problems
harness community resources
and assets
strengthen, or create new forms
of, neighbourhood governance
But it’s not a competition: both are good, both offer communities more
control to a greater or lesser extent. It depends on what local people want.
PB can be a useful stepping stone to Neighbourhood Community Budgets.
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What’s in it for communities?
• 9 out of 10 people surveyed in Poplar, agreed
that they should ‘do their bit’ and over half
wanted to get involved in turning their
neighbourhood around (1,200 sample)
• Two-thirds of people surveyed In White City
said they would get involved in their
community to a great or to some extent (500
sample)
• Over half of people surveyed in Haverhill said
they would get involved in local services if
they felt they could help to improve them.
Enthuse
“I don’t think they think about it
collectively do they. I mean
they turn the lights off and that
saves the Council money but it
actually costs the Police more
money. … I think if they were to
get married and join hands,
and all work together they
might all save money.”
“there’s loads of young
families in Haverhill, and
loads of them would be
willing to give a couple of
hours of their free time if it
meant the place was going
to be better for their kids”
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So are you interested?
Support
If so…
For Participatory Budgeting:
•
There are tools, guidance, case studies and other resources on the
Participatory Budgeting Unit’s website:
http://www.participatorybudgeting.org.uk/
For Neighbourhood Community Budgets:
•
Watch this space!
And for Community Rights, including Neighbourhood Planning:
•
DCLG is funding expert support organisations to work with community
groups, parish councils and local authorities. An enquiry service, advice,
case studies (and more) can be found at http://mycommunityrights.org.uk
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