Communities played their part in directing almost £6m of South Ayrshire Council’s budget to projects last year, almost three times the amount they had targeted.
Participatory budgeting is designed to give local people a more direct say in how and where public funds can be used to address local issues.
Hundreds of projects across South Ayrshire’s six ‘localities’ have been chosen at special ‘decision days’ since participatory budgeting was introduced in 2016.
These are generally based on specific themes, such as health and wellbeing, with communities voting on how best to spend the council’s existing budget.
Council have committed to utilise at least one percent of their overall budgets on participatory budgeting.
For South Ayrshire Council this would have equated to £2.2m, far less than the £5.9m it managed in 2021/22.
A report to the council’s service and performance panel last Thursday defined participatory budgeting as: “Proactively involving and engaging local people in making decisions for how public money is spent in their community.
“This means engaging people in the design of policy and strategy that eliminates existing participation gaps.
“The council has, over the past few years, evidenced greater participation in wider consultation and engagement with communities across a number of social media and mainstream communication platforms.”
While there is no direct budget for this approach the last administration made £1.5m available for the delivery of plans in various communities.
The areas of spending voted for by communities in 2021/22 were £460k on roads, £66k on community health and care services, £140k on Maybole Town Hall, £869 on ‘special property projects’ and £690k on Thriving Communities.
Participatory budgeting is defined as: “Proactively involving and engaging local people in making decisions for how public money is spent in their community.
“This means engaging people in the design of policy and strategy that eliminates existing participation gaps.”
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