Data

General Issues
Economics
Specific Topics
Budget - Local
Location
Freiburg
Germany
Scope of Influence
City/Town
Start Date
End Date
Ongoing
Yes
Facilitators
No
Face-to-Face, Online, or Both
Online
Communication of Insights & Outcomes
New Media

CASE

Participating Budget, Freiburg (Germany)

May 28, 2016 pkoebler
January 15, 2012 pkoebler
General Issues
Economics
Specific Topics
Budget - Local
Location
Freiburg
Germany
Scope of Influence
City/Town
Start Date
End Date
Ongoing
Yes
Facilitators
No
Face-to-Face, Online, or Both
Online
Communication of Insights & Outcomes
New Media

Problems and Purpose

The 2009/2010 participatory budget for the city of Freiburg, Germany, was an initiative started with the aim of establishing a balance in public accounts, since at that time the budget was compromised, due to the high degree of public spending. Thanks to the cooperation project between the Land-State Baden-Württemberg and the city of Freiburg, based on the program "Opportunities is equal to equality and equal opportunities for women and men", which aimed to promote research projects on equal opportunities for women. men and women in different spheres of life and to raise public awareness of the cause of equality between women and men, through exemplary and innovative practices. In this context, the city of Freiburg and the State Foundation, discussed the municipal budget in which the participation process of citizens, via the online for participation in the 2009/2010 Freiburg budget, covered all social sectors and their proposals were successful. be accepted by the technicians and administrative officials of the city.

History

As part of the Freiburg city project with the Baden-Wuerttemberg State Foundation, "2009/2010 budget participation" has been tested at the local and European level and has also been tried out by DEMOS [1] .

The discussion was comprised of 3 levels, with 1861 registered users. The online system registered 10 973 85 290 visitors, 757 messages, of which 22 can be placed together with comprehensive documents on various topics around Freiburg.

The implementation of the online discussion completed this disclosure cycle as the second component of the 2009/2010 participatory budgeting process. In the beginning of 2008, the online forum tried to discuss topics such as “weighting the city's finances” followed by research in the coming months for further debates.

The topics covered were of a large scale, passing through all the criteria that went from education, culture, as a means of transport, taxes and city taxes. Intense thematic discussions around a range of budgetary issues have taken place in various forums. Thus, in addition to the real-time discussion with experts, others were discussed as issues of equal opportunities for all, reconciliation between work and family, women, and poverty in old age and the future of youth.

Originating Entities and Funding

Domain: eGovernment

Topic: eDemocracy eParticipation and eVoting

Target users: citizens, businesses, all inhabitants of the city of Freiburg in Breisgau and civil society in general.

Funding source: local public

Value of the project and its implementation: € 15 - 49,000

Participant Selection

Participation was free and open to all people in the city of Freiburg and the analysis was carried out according to the age group, respectively; less than 18, 18 to 24, 25 to 39, 40 to 64 and 65 years old, as well as according to their educational background and family situation.

Deliberation, Decisions, and Public Interaction

The online discussion of Freiburg's budget participation had three consecutive phases, which aimed at the development of tangible results.

The first was the stage of the discussion (07.04 - 2008/04/15) in which the citizens of Freiburg freely joined the participatory process, having as key themes the city's financial budget, thus discussing the priorities with regard to future distribution. of the budget and how it would be established. At the main forum, participants discussed their ideas and suggestions for the consideration of urban services and equality between men and women, technical issues, integrated financial calculation, all due to the open forum for discussion. Thus began a discussion on the ideal project for a process of public participation on important topics of subsidies such as public transport, culture and other genres.

The second phase (04/15/2008 - 06/05/2008) continued the discussion and proposals developed and, on the other hand, was intensified in several thematic forums as part of the preparation for the document process (wikis). In this phase, beside the main forum, two new sub-forums were added: one on equal opportunities, in order to explore the proposals on the equality and differences of the population in the household and the discourse on how budgeting could be developed. methods of participation in which the Forum was created, could discuss several aspects and critical points around the theme of citizen participation in the Federal Budget.

The third phase (06/05 - 05/09/2008), the sub-forums were closed. The main forum, that is, the participants were able to discuss, verify and, finally, review the documents as well as to re-address the key issues and topics of the discussion.

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

In the five-week discussion on the online forum, 1863 participants registered, totaling 757 messages and 1291 homes, the computer using the estimated budget used 914 justifications of the 14,095 indicated on the website. With the help of the moderators, the participants decided to choose to send 16 different suggestions to improve the city's finances.

During the period, the Internet platform registered 6310 unique visitors and 213 992 individual web page views. After completing the Freiburg online participation budget discussion, users were registered and classified by categories to obtain percentage values for the subjects covered within the online platform. The 1,863 registered users used this opportunity to assess the process from their perspective.

The case was presented to the eParticipation Workshop in Brussels organized by the eParticipation study project. On several occasions the Freiburg participatory budgeting process has been discussed at other eDemocracy conferences such as the Manchester National Participatory Budgeting Conference, a congress held in Leipzig or a workshop on participatory budgeting in Berlin. The case was also shared with different European projects funded by the Commission, such as the eParticipation study.

Secondary Sources

"Freiburger Beteiligungshaushalt". Freiburg.de. 2011

"Participatory budgeting in the City of Freiburg". Epractice.eu. 2008

External Links

"Streit um den Bereiligungshaushalt". Badische Zeitung. 07/09/2009

DEMOS International

Notes

[1] The DEMOS platform is a set of PHP web-based modules to facilitate large-scale eParticipation and online deliberation projects. The system is a server-based web application.