Problems and purpose

"The Participatory Budget is an instrument of direct participation of citizens in local public policies and, more specifically, in decision-making processes related to the use of certain economic resources for interventions of public utility". [1]

The total amount allocated is 20 million euros, divided among the 15 municipalities in proportion to the demographic weight and extension of each territory, reserving a quota of 2 million euros as a "reward" for those territories that have proven to be more virtuous in terms of participation. [2]

Thematic area. The Regulations of the BP have identified in the urban decor the area on which the proposals are to be oriented. "Participants were asked to propose intervention ideas capable of enhancing the beauty and usability of urban spaces for collective use - especially if in a state of abandonment or decay - through a multidisciplinary and systemic approach that envisaged integrated actions on several areas ( greenery, street furniture, lighting, etc.). The interventions could aim both at the recovery and maintenance of the existing one and at the addition of innovative functions and elements aimed at facilitating the livability, accessibility and sociability of the selected contexts: by way of example only, the proposals could concern play areas and sports facilities, spaces and structures for social and / or cultural activities, gardens and green areas more or less equipped, cycle and pedestrian paths and for alternative mobility, etc., as long as they are areas of exclusive competence of Roma Capitale, belonging to one or more municipal areas. A decisive discriminant of the process was represented by the design breath of the intervention: not a request for mere maintenance, but an idea of reconversion or redevelopment of a space for collective use, including one or more innovative elements or, in any case, an added value given by the integration of several types of intervention ". [3]

History and background context

"Roma Capitale, thanks to the experience gained since 2006 in the participatory planning of urban transformation processes, has adopted the Participatory Budget with the approval of the new Capitoline Statute (Capitoline Assembly Resolution No. 5 of 30 January 2018) which, to art. 8 bis, formally introduces it "in order to ensure the widest popular involvement and the highest level of direct democracy and transparency", in line with the Administration's Program Lines and with the 2017-2020 RC Digital Agenda. Also within the Regulations for Institutes of Participation and Popular Initiative, currently under review, the introduction of the Participatory Budget is envisaged among the forms of consultation of the city community. The detailed rules were subsequently the subject of a specific Regulation, approved on April 4, 2019 with Resolution of the Capitoline Assembly no.31, which defines the Participatory Budget as "a tool for participation and public consultation aimed at strengthening the relationship of trust between citizens and institutions as well as to respond to the needs and requirements of the city community, also for the purpose of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the strategic-operational and economic-financial planning of the Capitoline Administration ”. The 2019 Participatory Budget of Roma Capitale was, therefore, characterized by a strong experimental value, having put the new discipline into a system as well as the experience gained the previous year in the VIII Municipality with the participatory process relating to the "Plan of Structure and requalification urban area of Piazza dei Navigatori and viale Giustiniano Imperatore ", referred to in the resolution of the Giunta Capitolina n.87 of May 9, 2018. With the Resolution of the Giunta Capitolina n.103 of May 31, 2019, the Disciplinary of the process was finally approved, which it has defined the thematic area, the resources and the operating procedures ". [4]

The BP area dedicated to urban decoration is due to the bad reputation, which has reached the national news, for the poor state of maintenance of public spaces and streets (with the famous holes in Rome). The Giunta Raggi (in office since June 2016) set up a specific office with single direction, in November 2018, called the "Coordination Office for urban decor" and wanted the first BP in Rome to be aimed at remedying as much as possible to this problem.

-color: transparent; "> Roma Capitale is the name of the special territorial body, established by law 42/2009, which constitutes the role of the previous Municipality, with greater responsibilities regarding the international offices present in its territory, greater administrative management and territorial competences. From the democratic-administrative point of view, its territory is divided into 15 municipalities, also endowed with greater autonomy and competences than the other Italian sub-municipal entities. In its territory there are 2,800,000 inhabitants and 2,093,000 voters.

Organization, support and financing

Roma Capitale, Department of participation, communication and equal opportunities. Directed by Dr. Antonella Caprioli, it brings together 4 services and several offices, including the planning office for participation processes. It also coordinates with the Communication Models and Tools Department, headed by Dr. Cinzia Marani. The amount intended for the organization.

Recruitment and selection of participants

"The Capitoline participatory budget is actively addressed to all the subjects that Article 6 of the Statute recognizes as holders of participation rights:

• citizens registered on the electoral lists of Roma Capitale;
• non-resident citizens, who enjoy active voting rights and carry out their main study or work activity in the city;
• foreigners of age, legitimately present in the territory for study or work reasons.

If the population of resident citizens represented the most consistent reference target (as the participation numbers have shown), the other two types of users fall into the macro-category of city users , to whom the Capitoline Administration recognizes a position equal to the former - with regard to participation rights - due to the consistent specific weight in the use of urban services and spaces, in a metropolis that constitutes a natural attraction pole for students and workers at national and international level. In addition to citizens and city users, there is a third category of subjects called to actively participate in the Budget: the Municipalities, expressions of that part of the Administration closest to the territory and, for this reason, profound knowledge of social problems and issues. They were given the opportunity to become promoters of intervention proposals shared with the citizens, reserving 20% of the basic quota of resources allocated to each territory for these initiatives. This form of interaction between municipal administrations and citizens has made it possible, despite the stringent deadlines, to implement forms of co-planning on the territory in order to reach and give voice to even those portions of the population that are not digitized, further strengthening representativeness and legitimacy. of the interventions to be included in the financial statements ". [5]

The involvement and recruitment of participants following the steps of the process:

1. Information communication campaign for the launch of the process, broadcast on all administration channels, with the following elements: n. 1,500 posters 100x140; n. 50 posters 300 x 140; n. 15,000 flyers; n. 1000 attic; retrobus (13 days). In addition to the traditional channels, extensive programming has been added within the newsletters of Radio Roma Capitale (broadcast online and in metro stations), in the scrolling monitors of the stations, managed by Roma Servizi per la Mobilità, and in the institutional social channels (Facebook and Twitter), in which a video tutorial in LIS language was conveyed and a series of posts that formed a sort of countdown for the opening of the voting phase. The main information core was represented by the institutional portal, constantly updated both on the home page, among the news by the press office, and in the specific section within the Participate macro-area (also reachable through a banner in hp) , where all the culminating phases of the process took place and where all the documentation and preparatory documents were made available. Appropriate informative notesand have been prepared for the staff assigned to the Public Relations Offices, the ChiamaRoma contact center 060606 and the points Roma Facile, called upon to provide operational support to citizens at all stages of the process and, in particular, in the operations to be carried out online. In addition, a direct mailing campaign with diversified contents was activated for almost 500 thousand users registered on the institutional portal. Finally, the start of the participatory process was announced to the media with a press conference by Mayor Virginia Raggi on 10 June, the opening day of the collection of proposals. [6]

2. Collection and support of proposals. From 10 June to 15 July, the collection of proposals / ideas for intervention by citizens, both individuals and associates, took place in a more or less formalized manner. The process recorded the participation of the District Committees, the main drivers of the various local authorities, to the extent of at least one for each Municipality. The channel responsible for sending the proposals was the online platform specially set up within the Participate area → Participatory Processes section, accessible after authentication at the portal with Roma Capitale credentials, SPID or National Services Card. Membership in one of the categories of persons entitled to participate was verified by means of an automatic comparison with the electoral lists, for residents, and through the compilation of a self-declaration for city users, with the provision of random checks. The proposals were available in clear text on the institutional portal, with the attribution of a pseudonym to each proposer. For requests for information, support or clarifications, an institutional email has been made available - [email protected] - which, during the operational phases, responded to over 80 requests for support. Until 21 July 2019, the proposals, available in clear text on the portal, could be supported online by other users (after identification), with a mechanism similar to the like of the main social networks. As per the Regulations, all the proposals that obtained at least 5% of the support - calculated on a municipal basis - were admitted to the subsequent technical evaluation phase. The high dispersion of votes, found above all in those Municipalities that are more virtuous in terms of participation, and the intention to further enhance participation subsequently prompted the Capitoline Council to introduce an additional criterion for inclusion: with Resolution no. 150 on 31 July, further proposals were admitted to the examination of the Technical Roundtable in the measure of one in every thousand subscriptions, calculated by default, according to the order of the individual municipal and inter-municipal rankings. In total, 73 proposals from citizens who passed this first level of selection.

The administrations of the 15 municipalities were asked to choose their own mode of participation from three alternatives:

to. The collection and / or sharing of ideas, proposals and projects with citizens through meetings and public assemblies, to be structured in a freely chosen form;

b. The attribution of reward coefficients to individual proposals or categories of proposals, in order to support, during the voting phase, certain initiatives that are particularly consistent with the intentions or priorities of the Administration;

c. The establishment of focus groups representative of the resident population in each Municipality, consisting of a number of participants between 20 and 50 and extracted - according to a stratified design based on the parameters of gender, citizenship and age - among those who had self-nominated through specific form made available on the institutional portal.

Given the time constraints and the experimental nature of this first experience, all the Municipalities have chosen to make use of the first method, that is to present - within the deadline of 13 September - project ideas previously shared with citizens through public meetings in the area. In some cases it was decided to "adopt" proposals already received by citizens, to guarantee them greater chances of victory thanks to the 20% reserve provided for municipal proposals.wings. All the contributions of the Municipalities were equally subjected to the technical-administrative-financial sustainability examination of the Administration Board. In total, the citizens' proposals were 1,481 from 1,076 proposers (the maximum limit was five proposals per citizen), of which 938 were deemed to be related to the process and published on the institutional portal. On the other hand, 40 projects received from the Municipalities, for a total of 1,521 proposals received. Among the citizens' proposals, those that came to the examination of the Table - in the light of the almost 159 thousand supports expressed - were 193 to which were added those of the Municipalities, for a total of 233 proposals examined after the outcome of the first technical selection. administrative. [7]

3. Technical-administrative evaluation. The Table, coordinated by the Deputy Directorate General Services to the Territory, was from time to time made up of representatives of the various central and territorial structures of the Capitoline competent under different profiles: from environmental impact to urban planning, from economic sustainability to infrastructural one. The following structures were involved: Office of Purpose for Urban Decor, Department of Simple Rome, Department of Infrastructure, Department of the City in Motion, Department of Mobility and Transport, Department of Participation, Communication and Equal Opportunities, Department of Planning and Urban Implementation, Department of Protection Environmental, Infrastructure Development and Urban Maintenance Department, all Municipalities, with reference to the Technical Departments and the Presidency offices. [8]

4. Online voting. The interventions validated by the Administration Table were finally submitted to the online vote through the same platform, available on the institutional website and accessible after identification. From 12 to 21 October, each titled citizen had the right to express up to three preferences in a single voting session ("voting booth" model). This phase was supported by a relaunch of the communication campaign through the same channels used in the previous phases. During voting, the number of votes obtained by each work was kept visible online, respecting the anonymity of the voters. Overall, the works collected 36,128 votes from almost 17,000 voters. At the end of the consultation, the last sessions of the Table were held to proceed with the definition of the winning projects on the basis of the available budgets. After the official communication of the results of the works to the Participation, Communication and Equal Opportunities Department by the Deputy Directorate General for Territorial Services, in charge of the Table, the closure of the process was formalized with the Capitoline Council Resolution no. 284 of 10 December 2019, which took note of the results by attributing the competences of the works to the respective central and territorial Capitoline structures and arranging for the inclusion of the related funds in the 2020-2022 budget. The process that led to the identification of the works to be carried out, the path of transparency and reporting to citizenship by the Capitoline Administration continues: in the context of the next evolutions of the Participate area, a system for tracing the progress of the works for each individual work is planned .

Overall participation. The overall users of the platform, participating in the online proposal, support and vote phases were 46,204, of which 42,756 (93%) voters (about 2% of the total Roman voters) and 3,448 (7%) city users. 40% of subscribers used a PC, 55% a mobile phone and 5% a tablet. [9]

Methods and tools used

The participatory budget (BP) is a method of participation born in Porta Alegre in Brazil in the eighties, which provides for the making available to the public decision, a percentage of the municipal budget. The opening phases are generally organized with "Town Halls" ( town hall / public assemblies ) open to all in the various areas of the city / territory where the problems and needs of the inhabitants arise, as well as possible solutions. In some cases, in these assemblies the representatives are elected or - as in the case in question - they are drawn by lot on the basis of the candidacies, those who will discuss in the next phase which projects and interventionspropose and design. These proposals are screened by the municipal technical officials who evaluate their feasibility, making them continue to the next stage of selection. In the final assemblies open to all, again, the proposals to be implemented are voted. In recent years, online voting has been increasingly used. In this case, public meetings were organized in the territory, at the 15 municipalities, and then the process was concluded with online voting.

What happened: process, interaction and participation

1. From 3 June 2019: Information phase. Launch of the communication campaign, with the mayor's press conference on 10/6 in which the collection of proposals begins.

2. 10 June - 21 July: presentation of citizens' proposals and collection of online support; The upload form has provided for the articulation of each proposal through a structured format, so as to ensure overall a minimum uniformity in the presentation method: title; a brief and more detailed description of the proposed intervention; scope and type of intervention; objectives and expected results; recipients and beneficiaries; cost estimate (if any); any attachments (renderings, projects, images of the areas concerned, documents, etc.); geolocation and map display. [10]

Most of the proposals focused on the redevelopment of squares and urban areas - through a series of integrated interventions on flooring, lighting, street furniture - and on the enhancement of parks, gardens and green areas; The need to ensure the presence of equipped play areas and dog areas in every neighborhood is also very much felt. Again, great attention is paid to the issues of accessibility and urban and road safety: video surveillance systems, indelible pedestrian crossings, efficient road signs. Finally, there are numerous proposals for the creation and / or enhancement of alternative cycle or cycle-pedestrian mobility paths, and for the reconversion of urban spaces for artistic or socio-cultural activities. Transversal to the different types of proposals, the desire to "take back" one's own city emerged, with the idea that a redevelopment of the places can act as a stimulus towards a conscious use of the territory in the name of sharing and aggregation, discovering - or rediscovering - a renewed desire to feel part of a community. [11]

3. 7 August - 4 October: technical-administrative-financial evaluation of the proposals of citizens and those of the Municipalities, received by 13 September; the projects of the citizens and those of the Municipalities were the subject of an examination that took into account, in addition to the actual feasibility, also the compatibility and coherence with the planning of the Authority already in place and with the planned one (for example, for the and cycle and pedestrian paths, consistency with the PUMS - Urban Plan for Sustainable Mobility was verified). In particular, the non-feasibility assessments concerned the following cases: works that insisted on areas not owned or in any case not available in the patrimony of Roma Capitale; works already financed; ordinary maintenance interventions; interventions already underway or planned within other programs / projects. In the case of several proposals concerning the same intervention, the Table proceeded, where possible, to merge them in full or in part, so as to submit only one to the final vote. In cases of overlap between proposals submitted by citizens and municipalities, the latter have been merged and associated with the municipality to give them the opportunity to benefit from the reserved share of 20%. Finally, with regard to the proposals that are only partially admissible, the Table proceeded to make functional extracts with the idea of adopting an approach that is as inclusive as possible, which takes into account every idea or element deemed valid within each proposal. A general economic estimate was also associated with each proposal, more or less in agreement with that made by the proposers where present; this was necessary to allow, at the end of the final vote, the identification of the winning works until the available budget is exhausted. In the case of works that were only partially included in the list of winners, they were included among the winners only if they can be divided in an equally functional perspective; otherwise, the criterion adopted was to go directly to the next work in order of votes received. At the end of the works were73 proposals from citizens and 38 from Municipalities admitted to the final vote, for a total of 111 interventions. [12]

4. 12 - 21 October: final consultation online; Overall, the works collected 36,128 votes from almost 17 thousand voters; 65 works were eligible for funding, divided into sixteen rankings (see images to consult the list of works).

5. Implementation and planning: that is the insertion, within the economic planning documents of the Entity, of the winning works within each municipal and inter-municipal ranking (for a total of 16 rankings), until exhaustion of the budget available in each ranking.

Influence, results and effects

The results were almost immediately translated into the Resolution of the Giunta Capitolina n. 284 of 10 December 2019, which took note of the results by attributing the competences of the works to the respective central and territorial Capitoline structures and arranging for the inclusion of the related funds in the 2020-2022 budget. [P. 14] On the site (Link 1) it is possible to consult the files of the works, their location on the map, find useful contacts for information and - according to what has been declared - follow their implementation process through special monitoring tools.

Analysis and lessons learned

Transparency is complete and organized in a final document. The Municipality did not make use of external figures so the organization had only internal costs that have not been indicated. Apparently the same graphics and advertising production was also produced internally. Reports could probably be produced by each municipality with a more narrative summary of the public meetings. However, from what was reported by the central organizers some transversal and profound needs emerge.

The sharing of the path is not given, it probably took place but in a short time and only with the decentralized structures. Representativeness reaches 2% of the Roman electorate and a trace of city users .

See also

References

[1] Roma Capitale, Department of Participation, Communication and Equal Opportunities, #Romadecide, Roma Capitale Participatory Report 2019, Participation document, Dec 2019, p.3, https://www.comune.roma.it/web-resources /cms/documents/Documento_della_Partecipazione_BP19.pdf (release 26/8/20).

[2] Ibidem, p. 5.

[3] Ib., P. 4-5.

[4] Ib., P. 3.

[5] Ib., P. 4.

[6] Ib., P. 8-9.

[7] Ib., P. 10-11.

[8] Ib., P. 13.

[9] Ib., P. 15-16.

[10] Ib., P. 10.

[11] Ib., P. 12.

[12] Ib., P. 13-14.

External links

1. Roma Capitale, Participatory budget 2019, https://www.comune.roma.it/web/it/processo-partecipativo.page?contentId=PRP322060 (release 26/8/20).

Note