From the Resource Hub: Evaluating participatory budgeting
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Evaluating participatory budgeting, and understanding its impact, is a vital part of any PB process. From the early days of planning, it’s really important to be thinking actively about how we can measure and learn from PB activity.
From increasing transparency and understanding its effectiveness, to capturing learning and making improvements for the future, getting evaluation right means you can be more confident about your PB work.
To help you do that, we’ve brought together some of the key evaluation resources that are feature on our PB Resources Hub, as well as some examples of real PB processes.
PB evaluation guides
Seven Simple Questions to Evaluate PB: This articles explores the importance of evaluating the impact of PB and presents 7 simple questions that will help PB steering groups and agencies to evaluate their process and events.
The PB Charter for Scotland: The PB Charter sets out seven key features showing what a fair and high quality participatory budgeting (PB) process should look like.
Glasgow’s Participatory Budgeting Evaluation Toolkit: The toolkit is intended to be user-friendly and helpful for the public sector, the voluntary sector and community organisations running PB activities.
Participatory Budgeting Self-Evaluation Toolkit: This guidance and the accompanying tools are designed to address the issue of capacity to evaluate, and also to ensure that the evaluation meets local need.
Supporting Community- Based Evaluations Of Participatory Budgeting: This briefing from GCPH explore things to think about when planning and evaluating a PB project.
Hear the Voice, Make the Change: Guide to evaluating PB processes: This briefing aims to support public sector organisations wishing to evaluate their mainstream PB initiatives. The techniques outlined here are also applicable to PB grant making programmes.
Guide to Evaluating the Wellbeing impacts of Participatory Budgeting: This new guide and toolkit reflects on recent experiences of Participatory Budgeting (PB) within the Gwent area of Wales, from early 2020 to January 2023.
Evaluations of PB processes
Evaluation of GCC ‘Wee Green Grants’ Participatory Budgeting processes: GCPH found that the the PB process was “an example of a strong, authentic and democratic PB process”.
Scottish Government PB evaluation 2016-18: The research set out to study the impact of PB on communities, services, local democracy, and tackling inequalities.
Shaping Budgeting: Evaluation of process by PB Partners: This evaluation by PB Partners describes the process, achievements and learning from a participatory budgeting initative in Aberdeen where young people had their say on how £50,000 of underspend.
