Data

General Issues
Governance & Political Institutions
Planning & Development
Specific Topics
Research & Development
Location
Glasgow
United Kingdom
Scope of Influence
City/Town
Components of this Case
Improving Participatory Budgeting in Scotland: A Collaborative Research Project
Links
http://whatworksscotland.ac.uk/
Start Date
End Date
Ongoing
No
Time Limited or Repeated?
A single, defined period of time
Purpose/Goal
Research
Develop the civic capacities of individuals, communities, and/or civil society organizations
Approach
Civil society building
Research
Evaluation, oversight, & social auditing
Spectrum of Public Participation
Involve
Open to All or Limited to Some?
Limited to Only Some Groups or Individuals
Recruitment Method for Limited Subset of Population
Appointment
Targeted Demographics
Stakeholder Organizations
Appointed Public Servants
Experts
General Types of Methods
Collaborative approaches
Evaluation, oversight, and social auditing
Research or experimental method
General Types of Tools/Techniques
Collect, analyse and/or solicit feedback
Plan, map and/or visualise options and proposals
Specific Methods, Tools & Techniques
Participatory Budgeting
Public Sector Reform
Survey
Q&A Session
Legality
Yes
Facilitators
Yes
Facilitator Training
Professional Facilitators
Face-to-Face, Online, or Both
Face-to-Face
Types of Interaction Among Participants
Discussion, Dialogue, or Deliberation
Ask & Answer Questions
Information & Learning Resources
Site Visits
Written Briefing Materials
Video Presentations
Decision Methods
General Agreement/Consensus
Communication of Insights & Outcomes
Word of Mouth
New Media
Primary Organizer/Manager
What Works Scotland
Type of Organizer/Manager
Non-Governmental Organization
Funder
What Works Scotland
Volunteers
No
Evidence of Impact
Yes
Types of Change
Changes in people’s knowledge, attitudes, and behavior
Changes in how institutions operate
Changes in civic capacities
Implementers of Change
Appointed Public Servants
Stakeholder Organizations
Experts
Formal Evaluation
Yes
Evaluation Report Documents
https://s3.amazonaws.com/participedia.prod/0fbe84b2-ed45-410a-a9af-854c94552322_ParticipatoryBudgetingEvaluationToolkit.pdf
Evaluation Report Links
http://whatworksscotland.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParticipatoryBudgetingEvaluationToolkit.pdf

CASE

Collaborative Development of Glasgow’s Participatory Budgeting Evaluation Toolkit

General Issues
Governance & Political Institutions
Planning & Development
Specific Topics
Research & Development
Location
Glasgow
United Kingdom
Scope of Influence
City/Town
Components of this Case
Improving Participatory Budgeting in Scotland: A Collaborative Research Project
Links
http://whatworksscotland.ac.uk/
Start Date
End Date
Ongoing
No
Time Limited or Repeated?
A single, defined period of time
Purpose/Goal
Research
Develop the civic capacities of individuals, communities, and/or civil society organizations
Approach
Civil society building
Research
Evaluation, oversight, & social auditing
Spectrum of Public Participation
Involve
Open to All or Limited to Some?
Limited to Only Some Groups or Individuals
Recruitment Method for Limited Subset of Population
Appointment
Targeted Demographics
Stakeholder Organizations
Appointed Public Servants
Experts
General Types of Methods
Collaborative approaches
Evaluation, oversight, and social auditing
Research or experimental method
General Types of Tools/Techniques
Collect, analyse and/or solicit feedback
Plan, map and/or visualise options and proposals
Specific Methods, Tools & Techniques
Participatory Budgeting
Public Sector Reform
Survey
Q&A Session
Legality
Yes
Facilitators
Yes
Facilitator Training
Professional Facilitators
Face-to-Face, Online, or Both
Face-to-Face
Types of Interaction Among Participants
Discussion, Dialogue, or Deliberation
Ask & Answer Questions
Information & Learning Resources
Site Visits
Written Briefing Materials
Video Presentations
Decision Methods
General Agreement/Consensus
Communication of Insights & Outcomes
Word of Mouth
New Media
Primary Organizer/Manager
What Works Scotland
Type of Organizer/Manager
Non-Governmental Organization
Funder
What Works Scotland
Volunteers
No
Evidence of Impact
Yes
Types of Change
Changes in people’s knowledge, attitudes, and behavior
Changes in how institutions operate
Changes in civic capacities
Implementers of Change
Appointed Public Servants
Stakeholder Organizations
Experts
Formal Evaluation
Yes
Evaluation Report Documents
https://s3.amazonaws.com/participedia.prod/0fbe84b2-ed45-410a-a9af-854c94552322_ParticipatoryBudgetingEvaluationToolkit.pdf
Evaluation Report Links
http://whatworksscotland.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParticipatoryBudgetingEvaluationToolkit.pdf

What Works Scotland and Glasgow Community Planning Partners collaboratively developed an evaluation approach to assess the impact of Participatory Budgeting (PB) activities.

Problems and Purpose

What Works Scotland and Glasgow Community Planning Partners recognised the need to develop an evaluation approach to assess the impact of Participatory Budgeting (PB) activities. Using a Collaborative Action Research (CAR) model, the group intended to devise an evaluation toolkit for PB activities in Glasgow.

Background History and Context

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Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities

This initiative is part of the collaborative action research work between Glasgow Community Planning Partnership and What Works Scotland.

Participant Recruitment and Selection

The group drew together professionals in Glasgow from different service areas and the third sector to develop the pilot toolkit. The collaborative action research process offered those involved the space to operate as a new team, and to learn together and from each other. The group included members from various community planning partners and was led by Evelyn O’Donnell from Glasgow City Council and Alex Byers from Glasgow Life. Other group members included representatives from the NHS, the Third Sector Forum and Foundation Scotland. What Works Scotland researchers Richard Brunner (University of Glasgow) and Oliver Escobar (University of Edinburgh) supported and facilitated the group.

Methods and Tools Used

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What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation

Participatory budgeting (PB) is growing fast in Scotland. As part of its collaborative action research programme in Glasgow, What Works Scotland and public service workers in Glasgow Community Planning Partnership (CPP) worked together to devise a bespoke PB evaluation framework for use in the city. The CAR group met 15 times from mid-2015 to December 2016. They worked together through dialogue and evidence-gathering to decide what was important for them to include in a pilot PB evaluation toolkit for Glasgow.

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

During the 18 months that the project took place, the group undertook the following activities in the development of the toolkit:

  • Heard evidence from Glasgow Libraries about their PB evaluation process for children’s books.
  • Reviewed and discussed national and international PB evaluation literature, including:
  • 15 Key Metrics for Evaluating Participatory Budgeting: A Toolkit for Evaluators and Implementers published by Public Agenda, the Participatory Budgeting Project and the North American Participatory Budgeting Research Board
  • Participatory Budgeting in Scotland: An overview of strategic design choices and principles for effective delivery by Chris Harkins and Oliver Escobar.
  • Analysed a variety of PB pilots in Glasgow.
  • Considered PB evaluation frameworks emerging in the rest of Scotland.
  • In collaboration with Fife CPP, visited the Paris PB team to learn about the technical and political dimensions of how they evaluate their Europe-leading PB processes. Evelyn O’Donnell, Fife CPP and What Works Scotland reflected on the learning in a set of public blog posts.
  • Devised, drafted, and consulted on the content of the pilot PB evaluation toolkit.
  • Learned how the toolkit needed to take a ‘pick and mix’ approach, able to be used by small PB projects in Glasgow for evaluating a small number of dimensions, and also be applied as a ‘full fat’ version by large PB initiatives. It needed to be useful for the community and the third sector as well as for the statutory sector.
  • In collaboration with What Works Scotland, they finalised the design of the PB toolkit for use as a working pilot.
  • Took ownership for updating the pilot toolkit in future, based on ongoing learning.

The key outcome was the toolkit itself, which can be found here. This toolkit is intended to support any individual or group organising a PB activity to plan how to evaluate their PB process, and to collate the evidence and information required. It offers a ‘pick and mix’ approach so that PB organisers can select what should be evaluated depending on the size and scale of the PB activity they are leading.

It allows PB organisers to determine how best to assess how their organisation or community group did at:

  • Leadership and governance of the PB activity (planning)
  • Delivery of key PB processes (process)
  • Outcomes from the PB activity (impact)

Analysis and Lessons Learned

Through this process the group generated their own bespoke PB evaluation toolkit, rather than buying something ‘off the peg’. The process of doing this enabled the group participants to be able to fully own, understand, and advocate for the use of the Glasgow PB evaluation toolkit, based on evidence. This also meant that it was possible for the toolkit to specifically apply to the culture, context and needs of Glasgow.

One of the main challenges for the CAR process was maintaining involvement by the whole group throughout. Group members all had different priorities, and although the group met at different times and venues, core group involvement was limited to three or four professionals. As What Works Scotland observed in other cases, Collaborative Action Research and co-producing outputs and outcomes can be done but sustaining group member involvement throughout is very challenging.

See Also

Participatory Budgeting 

Improving Participatory Budgeting in Scotland: A Collaborative Research Project

'Equally Well' Participatory Budgeting in Govanhill, Glasgow 2008-2012 

Thriving Places: Collaborative Development of an Evaluability Assessment in Glasgow 

References

http://whatworksscotland.ac.uk/casesites/glasgow/ 

http://whatworksscotland.ac.uk/tag/paris-study-trip/ 

http://whatworksscotland.ac.uk/publications/participatory-budgeting-in-scotland-an-overview-of-design-choices-and-principles/

https://www.publicagenda.org/pages/15-key-metrics-for-evaluating-participatory-budgeting [BROKEN LINK]

http://whatworksscotland.ac.uk/publications/glasgows-participatory-budgeting-evaluation-toolkit/ 

External Links

http://whatworksscotland.ac.uk/

Notes