Proponiamo insieme, decidiamo insieme

Submitted by Pauline Cescau on Wed, 06/08/2011 - 14:02

The participatory process of Saione “Proposing together, deciding together” (“Proponiamo insieme, decidiamo insieme”) took place in the Saione district of the city of Arezzo. The process began in 2005 and has been repeated every year since. The main goal of the process has been to involve every family residing within the district to propose solutions about “how to spend public money?” in Saione.

1. Problem and purpose

In 2005, the district of Saione already began to organize participative processes by launching the participative budget “Proposing together, deciding together”. The project has three goals: to improve the efficiency of policy budgeting in order to solve the true problems of Saione; to create transparent; to bring political decisions closer to the citizens.

Like many other regions in Italy, within the last ten years, the population in Tuscany has been facing a growing distrust against the political institutions. In order to recover the population’s confidence, the Region passed a law to promote citizen participation http://www.regione.toscana.it/regione/export/RT/sito-RT/Contenuti/sezioni/diritti/partecipazione/rubriche/piani_progetti/visualizza_asset.html_364193417.html). Thanks to regional financial support, participatory budgeting in Saione has benefitting from a growing legitimacy among the population. In addition, the process has been instrumental in recovering the confidence of the inhabitants in political institutions.

In 2010, the district decided to pursue further goals in order to improve the process: to increase participation (this includes people with access problems), setting up a network relationship which would be more appropriate to the citizens’ demands, acquiring a better knowledge of the territory, coordinating a participative culture, legitimizing the participative budget by giving a transparent summary of the results of the project. The global cost of the process was approximately €44,000 and was provided by the commune and the Tuscany region. The project lasted from July 2009 to December 2009.

2. Participant selection

The participative process was aimed at the inhabitants of the district. In order to involved all social groups (especially young people, women and non nationals), the district led a widespread canvassing campaign in nine different languages and decided to organise the participative assemblies during the evening in thirteen different areas which included some open parks (more appealing for women with children and for young people). The project was open to all those who wanted to share their ideas and to discuss with the administrators themselves. Also, a website was established in order to allow the inhabitants to express their proposals ,which would then be discussed in the assemblies afterward. 526 inhabitants (out of 29,889) participated in these assemblies. Participants to the assemblies were asked to fill out questionnaires in order to evaluate their social background: these results revealed the heterogeneous composition of the participants and allowed the organiszrs to affirm that 526 inhabitants participated actively in the first phase. During the second stage, 65 people were chosen to analyze the proposals that were voted on during the first phase: these were technicians, officials and “privileged witnesses” which were chosen in all of the different assemblies (26 people). The last phase involved 40 people volunteers.

3. Deliberations, decisions and public interaction

The project was designed in three different phases. Before these phases commenced, a preliminary one was organised in order to inform most of the citizens within the district. This phase consisted mainly of a canvassing campaign, an organized “participating day” in the main square of the district (which was a big success) and forwarding of invitation letters to the 13,277 families residing on the territory. In addition, the opening assembly of the participative budget was broadcasted on a regional TV (Teletruria). The first phase of the process consisted of listening to the citizens in the thirteen different assemblies. This phase was designed to allow the people to propose and to vote for the three preferred ones at the end of the assembly. The methodology used for the assemblies was discussion in small groups, reconvening in a plenary assembly at the end of the session. During this phase, citizens also expressed their interests and worries about the environment. Therefore, a laboratory was created to reflect on the themes of an existing dumping grounds electromagnetism and noise pollution. At the end of the stage, all thirteen assemblies had to chose two representatives to be part of the monitoring team in order to guarantee the neutrality of the process.

The second stage involved meeting facilitators (experts about participating processes), privileged witnesses, the technical staff of the municipal administration and other authorities. This phase aimed at carefully analyzing the assemblies’ proposals under such aspects as feasibility, costs, implementation times. At the end of this phase, a list of priorities was defined.

The last phase aimed at approving a shared document on the priorities that were defined during the process. A district council was open to every citizen after another information campaign. An event was then organized in order to present the developed proposals , which were then voted on by the assemblies. This phase ended with the distribution of a questionnaire to every citizen in order to have a final evaluation of the process. A report was eventually sent to every citizen of the district.

During the whole process a monitoring staff was present in order to guarantee the neutrality and the impartiality of the participative budget. A councillor from the majority, one from the minority and one from the privileged witnesses were chosen to fulfill this role.

4. Influence, outcomes and effects

The participative process ended with a fourth stage consisting of the implementation of the approved proposals. This phase finished in December 2009 with the outline of a precise list of funded interventions; in fact, the program accomodated almost all proposals that were made during the participative process. The district Saione managed to make the participative process an event that the population expects every year. More and more people have been involved in the process thanks to an efficient communication campaign and the diffusion of the information about the process aided by the different networks involved.

5. Analysis and criticism

In terms of methodology, the 2009 process was a success because it managed to involve societal groups that were not able to participate in the previous processes (young people, women and non nationals). Also, the method used during the assemblies was able to guarantee the active involvement of the citizens. The laboratory set up for ecological themes was particularly successful according to the participants. 78,7 % of the people involved in the participative process declared to be favourable or very favourable to take part in other participative experiences in the future. Thus, we can then assume that Proposing together, deciding together” was a successful project. Debates held during the different phases were all characterized by a climate of conviviality and respect amongst participants. The participative process had a maximum impact on the policies of the district: the whole program of interventions was entirely drafted according to the citizens’ requests, and definitely helped citizens to trust the institutions more than before. In regards to the goal of inclusion in the process, we can say that this goal was achieved by pro-actively involving women and young people (42% of the participants were women, 20% were people less than 25 years old). We may assume that by scheduling the assemblies during the evening, using the parks as a location and organising small shows at the beginning of the sessions all helped in appealing to women and young people. Even though the rates of participation of non nationals was quite high (10% of participants) this must be analyzed more closely: even though non nationals were more represented than before, they only voted for the proposals but did not contribute to the discussion of the proposals.