If you live in central Luton you have a variety of opportunities to influence how their areas are improved in upcoming weeks thanks to participatory budgeting (PB) funding. ​PB funding can be applied for by community groups who use it to benefit the local area.

Once all applications are in, local community members come together at events called ‘decision days’ and vote on the projects they think will meet local priorities and improve the area the most. Projects with the most votes are then awarded funding.

The Harrow Open Budget initiative was initiated by key officials in the London Borough of Harrow to open up the process of developing the 2006/7 Council budget.The local authority used a form of Participatory Budgeting whereby elements of the budget were opened up to public debate around local priorities. The mechanisms used to engage the public were a day long Open Assembly of local residents, together with an on going Panel of residents to monitor the process.

The People's Fund was one of the original 5 pilots that the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister funded to trial PB. They used a small community chest approach, with two events using PB to allocate £15,000 and £35,000 respectively. It was run by the local regeneneration programme known as Back on the Map, which was the public face of the Sunderland New Deal for Communities 10 year renewal initiative.

Bradford Local Strategic Partnership (Bradford Vision), decided to distribute the 2006/07 round of Neighbourhood Renewal Funding (NRF) in Keighley using a process of Participatory Budgeting. On “Decision Day” community organisations allocated a total of £130,000 to local projects using the participatory budgeting.  The Keighley process was led by Bradford Vision’s neighbourhood manager for the area with the support of the senior team.

This case study reports on how Wigan Encompass used Participatory Budgeting principles to distribute £20,000 to community organisations who were members of the local community empowerment network. The Community Network members in Wigan, including Encompass, were eligible to bid for funds from the £20,000 allocation made by the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) to support the Networks during an interim period, 2008 - 2009 whilst long term funding was being sought..

Buckinghamshire County Council have taken a different approach to PB. Rather than trial a small grants pot, as most would when starting out with PB, Buckinghamshire are going to pilot 4 different kinds of PB at once. Buckinghamshire is aiming to integrate PB as 'the way we do community engagement'.

In 2006 the Community Council in Coedpoeth used precept funds in a PB process. It was promoted by community groups and local leaders. A leaflet was distributed to all residents in the village informing them of the process and inviting them to a public meeting. Together Creating Communities, a broad based community organisation, together with Help the Aged and the Community Council in Coedpoeth all provided support.

In 2006, Salford City Council made a decision to devolve decision making for the allocation of £100,000 of highways funding (Block 3 Transport capital – ‘Other Minor Works’) to each of the eight community committees in the city using Participatory Budgeting. The programme was a result of many years of work by the PB Unit lobbying the council to adopt a PB approach.

This case study was originally submitted to the Participatory Budgeting Unit by the organisers of the project, using a template supplied by the PB Unit.