Dimension 02 of 05
Cultivate agency
Going beyond consulting to empowering, so that local people can exercise, and truly feel, agency over their future.
Where community-led change has gone furthest, residents have not simply been asked for their views. They have held budgets, set priorities, and co-designed services themselves. Sherry Arnstein's Ladder of Participation is a useful framework to distinguish different depths of participation, from thin approaches to consultation to arrangements where power is properly shared (see the link below).
In discussions with Pride in Place areas, there has been an appetite for real ambition when it comes to achieving deeper participation. The goal ultimately is to cultivate agency in a local community, so that it becomes a habit for local people to be engaged in shaping the future of the area.
Case studies
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Big Local (opens in a new tab)
150 neighbourhoods, each of around 8,000 people, received £1.15m to spend over 10 to 15 years, with one condition: the local community had to be in the lead. The evaluation found reduced burglary rates and improved mental health in higher-spending areas.
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Community Choices (opens in a new tab)
The Scottish Government and COSLA agreed in 2017 that at least 1% of local government budgets should be decided through participatory budgeting. In 2020/21, £78.3m was allocated this way, with at least 43,800 people taking part.
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Wijkbudget (opens in a new tab)
€6.25m was divided across 25 neighbourhoods at between €150,000 and €350,000 each, with residents deciding how money was spent. In the two most disadvantaged neighbourhoods, panels of 20 residents were drawn by lottery from 500 candidates and weighted for age, background, gender and education. 150 projects were funded.
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Porto Alegre (opens in a new tab)
Cautionary example
Participatory budgeting was invented here, and governed upwards of 17% of the municipal budget from 1989 to 2004. This much-celebrated example of participation has since been scaled back, but in its time it helped drive impressive improvements in outcomes.
Most relevant practical materials
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A Ladder of Citizen Participation (opens in a new tab)
Free
An account of Sherry Arnstein's 'ladder of citizen participation', a way of understanding different depths of engagement. The publisher's copy is paywalled; this reproduction is freely redistributable.
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A Greater Manchester Participation Playbook (opens in a new tab)
Free
A toolkit of methods including participatory budgeting, participatory grant-making, citizens' assemblies and juries, legislative theatre and participatory design, illustrated by examples from Greater Manchester.
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Pride in Places? Participatory budgeting and realising community power (opens in a new tab)
Free
An argument for using participatory budgeting within Pride in Place, with ten recommendations, including a suggested sequence building up from year one to bolder approaches.
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Camden participatory grant-making toolkit (opens in a new tab)
Free
A toolkit on place-based participatory grant-making, covering how to recruit and pay resident panels. It references an example in which £6m was awarded by 200 residents with lived experience.
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Course
Taster session in community organising (opens in a new tab)
Free
A two-hour online introduction to community organising methods, covering listening and power.
Other creative ways to explore this dimension
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Film
The People vs Climate Change (opens in a new tab)
A documentary filmed inside Climate Assembly UK, following members of the public as they grapple with this complex issue.
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Film
Big Local: Changing Communities (opens in a new tab)
Free
A film in which residents describe, in their own words, what they did with a long-term pot of money they controlled themselves.
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Talk
How citizens, not politicians, are building the future (opens in a new tab)
Free
A talk by Jon Alexander, the author of Citizens, on the limits of consultation, and on what it looks like to treat people as citizens rather than consumers.
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Tool
Dotmocracy (opens in a new tab)
FreeCreative Commons
A method for group decision-making in which every idea is rated on a scale, to surface support and dissent.
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Tool
Crowd Wise (opens in a new tab)
Free
A method for groups of 15 to 1,500 people, in which participants merge and rank options rather than choose between them, generating composite results.
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Event
Decidim Fest, Barcelona (opens in a new tab)
A three-day annual conference for people running digital participation for city governments.