Your Local Budget
The Big Society Network and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) with support from the Participatory Budgeting Unit has launched ‘Your Local Budget,’ a new a project designed to give people a say in how mainstream local authority budgets are spent. Ten local authorities across the country will now develop new ways to involve local people in tough spending decisions, building on the pioneering approaches to Participatory Budgeting that have been developed around the world. The key aim is to harness the knowledge, ideas and capacity of local people to find more innovative and effective solutions to the financial and other challenges that now face public services. Another challenge is to increase public engagement on vital issues and improve trust. To coincide with the launch on 3rd November, NESTA is publishing a report, ‘Your Local Budget,’ which sets out the ambition behind the Your Local Budget programme and how it fits into the wider context of ‘people-powered public services’.
The People’s Budget campaign are working with community groups across Britain for new and more Participatory Budgeting.