Reading Notes: Participatory Budgeting

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

“Participatory Budgeting” Reading Notes

Chapter 1 The origin of the idea

Section 1 Can more deliberation improve democracy?

The dilemma between free will and total will in democratic politics? Characteristics of democracy:

Protect personal “free will” The whole will as the supreme sovereignty of the country Whole will: the collective will of all citizens

Citizen participation “The political feasibility for election purposes is extremely high, but the economic desirability for actual operation and maintenance is extremely low.” - Mosquito House

“Other constituencies have it, so we should have it too.”

The procedure is impossible and the result is undesirable. ——Two major bottlenecks in the design of democratic participation systems.

Procedural Impossibility: Any system has the flaw of being manipulated by those with the power to set the agenda.

The multiple preferences generated by respecting individual freedom cannot be meaningfully adjusted through the public choice system.

Undesirable results: whether people have the ability to make the public choices they strive for.

consultation asymmetry Professional asymmetry Factors that influence the public include ideology, party identification, media reports, the personal charisma of politicians, and fake news on the Internet. This is not a rational choice.

Is deliberative democracy the savior of the public participation dilemma? deliberative democracy.

The translation is not good. “Deliberation” has a top-down meaning. A better one would be “full discussion.”

Deliberative democracy is an element of democratic change that is “neither a procedure nor a result, but can be both a procedure and a result.” Its introduction makes it possible for traditional citizen participation to reconcile the dilemma between procedure and result.

What does participatory budgeting bring to citizens. The budget is the core of the operation of rights in a democratic country. It represents the right to manage the wallet. It is also one of the most important tasks held by the Parliament every year.

President Biden said: “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget and I can tell you what you really value.”

In representative democracy, budget deliberation is carried out by Congress or parliament, and there is little contact with ordinary democracy. The document writing is full of professional terms, resulting in professional asymmetry.

Political spoils sharing: pork barrel politics - a practice of political allocation of budget resources, just like those in power going to the meat barrel one by one to get their share, which implies that there is no long-term and professional plan for the country.

Is deliberation and optimization a kind of democratic reform that is based on “accumulation and accumulation”? Optimistic impact:

Through the baptism of citizen participation, ordinary people can be empowered and awakened in their will and cognition, and they will have a sense of being in charge of their own affairs. Deliberative activities can indeed reduce the degree of “elite dominance” in public policy decision-making. Pessimistic impact:

Decision-making rules and governance knowledge are still in the hands of political elites, and citizen participation in deliberative actions can usually only be incompletely practiced in some kind of “birdcage” experimental field.

Section 2 What is the difference between deliberative democracy?

Preface Representative democracy places “voting” at the core of political operations. Deliberative democracy regards “dialogue” as the core of democracy. Deliberative democracy has an educational effect and can improve the control of power and the manipulation of information in the public sphere.
Differences between deliberative democracy and other forms of democracy aggregate liberal democracy aggregative participatory democracy liberal deliberative democracy participatory deliberative democracy

The aggregative democratic process must be preceded by a public discussion process of collective deliberation and relies on majority rule voting procedures, resulting in results that violate the interests of the minority.

Switzerland’s regular referendum combines aggregate liberal democracy and aggregate participatory democracy.

Elements and important principles of deliberative democracy Elements: public reason

Key elements of deliberative democracy: listening, reflection, justification

Important guidelines

respect no right to suppress equality Reasoning The goal is consensus Common good orientation publicity Accountability Sincerity

Chapter 3 What does participatory budgeting want to do?

What does participatory budgeting aim to achieve? Changing government budget allocation priorities as disadvantages occur Expand the interaction and participation of community residents and build community awareness Transform passive voters into active citizens Promote the integration of bureaucracy and communities and stimulate administrative innovation Achieve the ideal of open government through openness, participation, tolerance and accountability in the government budget process Strengthen direct democracy and decide your own budget Has participatory budgeting served its purpose? At the bottom of the hierarchy, the budget involved is small

Elected politicians and NGOs are the initiators, but civil servants are often passive.

The final decision-making power usually rests with the executive head, so it is ultimately reduced to a consultation and communication function. Or participatory budgeting may end abruptly due to a change in executive leadership.

Some places did change government budget priorities

What does the future hold? Basic conditions:

People must have a certain degree of civic literacy. A bureaucracy that fully understands the value, connotation, procedures and limitations of participatory budgeting is needed. If the decision of participatory budgeting conflicts with the decision of the parliament, then civil servants will have to spend more time communicating with the parliament.

Participatory budgeting in Taiwan and the world Taiwan:

Hold a residents’ meeting in the community, open to everyone who wants to come, to come and propose plans. Workshops are held with experts in relevant fields, government representatives, social groups, volunteers and proposers to further plan, design and evaluate the plans passed by the residents’ meeting. The refined plans from the workshop can be displayed physically or online to let the public know about them. Votes are cast and the winning proposal is funded or budgeted to be implemented. The Origin and Diffusion of Global Participatory Budgeting 1989-1990 mid-term, cities in Brazil From the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, Latin American countries other than Brazil, as well as some European countries, France, Spain, and Italy Five continents around the world from mid-2000 to 2020. Diffusion:

left wing party The main promoter of the third wave is the World Bank, which provides many learning courses and research results. It also forces some countries receiving aid to implement participatory budgeting. participatory budgeting model The participatory democracy model, combined with direct democratic procedures, gives ordinary people substantial influence over policy. Approaching the democratic model, the goal is to improve communication between the government and the people. Citizens’ opinions are heard, but decision-makers have discretion. Only has “consultation” function. The participation in the modernization model is deeply influenced by the concept of “new public management”. Government services are “consumer” oriented and are concerned with technical issues at the management level rather than “social justice” and “social economy”. The multi-stakeholder model is also a top-down model, and private companies have opportunities to participate. The new corporatist model is also top-down, reconciling interests and needs through extensive consultation with important social groups and groups. Only has “Consultation” function. In the community development model, most plans are implemented by the community. On the one hand, it is promoted by the government from the top down. On the other hand, it also has a dynamic process of community organizations mobilizing people to participate from the bottom up. Taiwan’s Patterns and Characteristics Taking citizen empowerment and expanding participation as the core practice, it also incorporates elements of administrative modernization. Deeply influenced by deliberative democracy.

Limitations: Most of them are facilities or activities within the neighborhood community, and there are no socio-economic reform issues related to social justice.

Limitations, dilemmas. Public sector budget preparation has its limitations and must comply with the “Budget Law”. It is impossible to “hold accountability” from the people, and it is difficult for people to think comprehensively about their proposals. There is a cognitive gap between the responsible agency and the proposers, making it difficult to communicate and persuade. If the results are ineffective or wasteful after implementation, should civil servants or the general public be held accountable? It is difficult to motivate civil servants. The highest priority of civil servants is to be wise and protect themselves. Without incentives within the system, it is difficult to change. A direct collision with the parliament, the “supervisors” are distrustful.

Chapter 6: Laying the groundwork for the residents’ meeting:

participatory images Group proposal Desk leader and record guide Proposal ideas Group discussion and solution selection Proposal publication and voting (the top 2 or top 3 will be selected for the majority. In addition to being supported by half of the people on site, the proposal must also receive the top 2 or top 3 votes at the session to be passed)

Chapter 7 Citizen Deliberation: Safety Valve for Majority Democracy?

deliberations The team consists of 12 members:

The two committee members serve as moderators and are responsible for presiding over the meeting, summarizing the opinions of the responsible agencies and review members, serving as a communication bridge when necessary, and maintaining neutrality. One reviewer, deputy moderator, remains neutral. Advanced Citizen Card 2 people Junior Citizen Card 5 people 2 proposers in the previous year (excluding the administrative region of the original proposal) Junior advanced citizen card In the “Participatory Budgeting Training Course”, after completing 3 hours, you will get a junior citizen card, after completing 6 hours, you will get an advanced citizen card, and after 9 hours, you will get a deliberation card. You will also obtain the qualifications of “moderator, table leader, recorder, and deputy moderator”.

some questions Too few reviewers Reviewers lack emotional connection to case due to lottery decision The reviewer’s travel fee is only NT$120, which is far lower than the minimum wage of NT$168. How to regulate the reviewers who do not say a word or speak excessively? The review team member was not present for some reason, and the review member was also acting as the referee, resulting in a player-referee situation. The reason why deliberative democracy has become the main practical model of participatory democracy is that although representative democracy is based on majority rule, it cannot completely avoid the selfishness of representatives and the sloppiness of discussions in the decision-making process.

Chapter 9 The inclusion and convergence of proposals: the pull between ideals and reality

Dilemmas during the proposal process If the contents are similar or similar, should they be merged? Who will merge them and how? Who wants to be merged? Some proposers don’t like to propose together with others. What you want is not necessary for others, and it is more difficult to cross districts. The public is not professional enough, so how can we keep things in check? The proposal process is lengthy and the proposer may not be seen. The mentality of civil servants is that doing more is better than doing less. The proposer is more self-interested and can hide factors that are detrimental to him. Proposal circumvents participatory budgeting practices execute Members’ meeting

Chapter 13 Intermediary Group

Relevant organizations or groups, schools and actors that collaborate or directly promote PB plans.

Taiwan’s current PB types are divided into:

Municipal type Theme type community type The parliamentary type invites the public to participate in design proposals through the “Project Proposal Fund” in the form of PB. Almost all of the above four types have intermediary groups to assist in the promotion of PB.

Task: Design a mechanism for communicating with the public.

Chapter 14 Participatory Budgeting from a Bureaucratic Perspective

What is a bureaucracy? Bureaucratically organized administrative agencies Each agency has its own functional areas Civil servants are appointed based on technical qualifications determined by diplomas or examinations rather than elected Civil servants receive fixed salaries based on grade Occupation is life-long and civilian employment only Officials do not own their positions Officials surrender to control and discipline Promotion is based on judgment of superiors Sources of Bureaucratic Influence Being able to obtain information and control the flow of information to elected officials, provide planning for policy options and evaluate these options can influence policy decisions to a considerable extent. Because the actual machine is responsible for the implementation of the policy, it has the opportunity to interpret the meaning of the policy, and therefore may delay or block the implementation of a specific policy. Bureaucrats are often a group of elites with professional knowledge and an emphasis on performance. They are given the responsibility to maintain national interests and gain a certain amount of respect. Compared with political officials who “come and go” due to the rotation of political parties, bureaucrats maintain neutrality and continue to serve, with a permanent career. Participatory budgeting process and key points at each stage In the proposal review stage, there are four main links. The first is the convening of the residents’ meeting. This part is for citizens to brainstorm public issues and their solution strategies in order to formulate proposal ideas, which will be voted on by the participating citizens.

This is followed by the first step in participatory budgeting: the two stages of the proposal review workshop. Among them, the first stage is the “proposal discussion” stage, where bureaucratic representatives of the responsible agencies communicate with the proposers about the proposed alternatives or reasons for their infeasibility, and then experts and scholars provide correction suggestions and precautions.

Next, representatives from the citizen review panel will review the proposal based on three indicators: publicity, legality, and budget feasibility. After completion, the proposal plan will be publicly displayed online or in person so that you can understand the proposal and express your opinions.

Proposals in the proposal voting stage must obtain “high” or “moderate” feasibility evaluations on all three indicators of proposal review before they can be voted on by the i-Voting system.

As for the third stage, the Civil Affairs Bureau will notify the agency responsible for voting on the proposals and plan the required budget. If the implementation funds need to be paid in the next year’s budget, or a new budget for the next year is compiled, the existing budget preparation procedures will be followed.

Finally, to ensure that participatory budget proposals can be implemented, the Civil Affairs Bureau has also established a “proposal management system” to control the implementation progress and execution amount by the Research and Examination Committee.

In practice, after a proposal is made at the “Residents’ Assembly”, because disputes over the ownership of powers and responsibilities among the agencies involved in the proposal cannot be completely ruled out, a “pre-meeting meeting” will be held. The district office in charge will convene relevant agencies to determine the sponsors and co-sponsors of the “project management” and even include new agencies, so that these agencies can communicate with the proposer in advance on whether the proposal is feasible.

The residents’ meeting begins with a majority decision. After the decision is made, we will enter the deliberation stage. As for the deliberation stage… there will be a pre-conference meeting first. The pre-conference meeting will contain the people’s proposals. The district office will distinguish between the responsible agency and the co-organizing agency for this case. Then we will have a meeting with these agencies, have a discussion first, and then determine our division of labor and reach a consensus: who is in charge and who is the co-organizer, or if we have not listed anything to be included, we can mention it. After reaching a consensus before the meeting, you can ask them to go to these proposers to communicate the case first, because they already have relevant information. If you feel that something is unclear, the responsible agency may not be able to do what the other party mentioned, or there are other issues, you can communicate in advance.

The “policy learning” of civil servants, knowing what is happening but not knowing why, is not conducive to the promotion of “participatory budgeting” policy. In other words, if the mayor promotes this policy, of course he is a mayor elected by everyone, so he promotes this policy, and he hopes that the entire municipal team will help him implement this policy. I think maybe he did not turn around and tell our team, why should we promote this policy? What is our spirit? What are our core values?

We want to make the people below feel that what I am doing is meaningful. Yes, you can’t say it, then you do it. Then those of us who implement it don’t know why we do it! Sometimes it’s just a matter of handing in your homework and getting your work done!

If your own team or does not understand this core value, this is a big obstacle. For example, when we are doing publicity today, or (offering courses on citizen participation), or when promoting, we want to say that what we are talking about (maybe just) is a symbol (image), and you (citizens) hurry up and participate! I hope that citizens will participate, and then (everyone) try their best to propose (proposals), but why this matter should be done, I think is the key point. Is the existing system defective? Is it an obstacle? Or is the channel for public feedback not smooth? That’s why you have to do this. Yes, are we trying to make up for or make up for some of the shortcomings of the existing system?

Compared with the district office, the bureau’s “individualism” and sense of professional superiority are more obvious. “Project management” will formulate the relevant bureaus and bureaus for implementation. In the early stages of the policy, the relevant bureaus and bureaus of the city government were resistant and unwilling to take over.

Civil servants in certain bureaucracies with “technocratic” characteristics, such as engineering and information, have comparatively advantageous professional skills, and are more likely to find it difficult to treat them with empathy when communicating with proposers.

In fact, it is exclusive except for the district offices (bureaus), but it also has something to do with the division of labor in the city government. The city government will instruct a certain agency (bureau) to handle this matter, but other agencies will feel that this is none of their business, so why bother me?

How do we get everyone to agree with this issue? Maybe the district office or the Civil Affairs Bureau is okay, but it is the bureau that is really more resistant. Their attitudes are easy to appear. They will think about this proposal or how they will feel when communicating with the proposer. He will think that you know something, right! Therefore, sometimes the needs of public opinion conflict with the profession to some extent.

Of course he is selfish when it comes to the people, and that is what he should do. Of course he reacts to you based on his needs, so do you expect him to put forward a forward-looking suggestion? And then make a plan? Then whether (and can it satisfy) the public welfare or the public? That’s impossible!

Then when you go to the bureau and go to the first-level deliberation to discuss it, the bureau feels that what you are talking about is very unconstructive, or they think it is not very OK. But back to the point, because you are looking for these people for KPI, so of course his proposal will not be very good.

After you arrive at the bureau, the people in the bureau will feel that your topic is not very good if they have a little more expertise.

In addition, civil servants in bureaus tend to regard the implementation of the “participatory budgeting” policy as additional business that will increase their work burden. On the one hand, the content proposed by some “participatory budgeting” proponents has been proposed through other participation channels before and has been evaluated as unfeasible, but now the old proposal is being brought up again; on the other hand, even if it is feasible and implemented, it has triggered not so positive evaluations, which will also make the civil servants of the bureau find it difficult to accept.

From my observation, various bureaus and agencies think that they are resistant to “participatory budgeting”. That is to say, they all think it is looking for jobs and trouble!

…. The people in the bureau feel… This proposal is not feasible, or whatever, it conflicts with their profession, and they have to communicate with you (the public) all the time, which wastes a lot of their working time!

In fact, as far as the mentality of a civil servant is concerned, he is relatively repulsive because he has already done it and may have changed it (because of) petitions and the like. If the public mentions it again now, he will think of the original situation.

Sometimes people’s proposals are really passed, because if they pass the second level, they will be i-Voting, but basically, the cases that enter i-Voting will probably pass 100% of the time… Since it has been passed, it must be implemented. For example, in the case of parks, many of them are improvements or adjustments to facilities, but the adjustment of facilities is a matter of opinion. Some people will feel that the old one is not worse, and after the modification according to the people’s “participatory budgeting”, it is not better. Some public offices may even face doubts during the modification process, because the project proposed by the public has been modified through participatory budgeting, and they have to help them modify it. However, during the modification process, there will be disapproval from other people.

Performance standards and the self-interested motivations of civil servants KPI only focuses on “quantity”, and “quality” cannot be revealed through KPI. The quantity of knowledge (capacity) examined causes civil servants to try to “mobilize”.

How to solve: You can focus the measurement indicators on “results” instead of just the number of events and number of people.

The representativeness of those mobilized to vote and the quality of proposals are noteworthy. Can the cases proposed by the residents’ meeting represent the public opinion of the community? This is the first point. If i-Voting is passed, does it really represent public opinion? Because this vote is not necessarily for the people who live nearby. Maybe I (maybe) have no idea what you are talking about about the content of your proposal. I just took a promotional material, and then I voted, and I agreed. I just feel that both representations are controversial!

We have five tables here today, and one of them may be ordinary people. He knows that this is participatory budgeting and he thinks it is great. He also proposed a great case, but he came alone, and the other side may be a group, or everyone was mobilized together. More than 10 people came, and the case he proposed. Sometimes I feel that the case he proposed is not so exciting in comparison. But the case you have worked on may be the less OK one, and the good case is washed away, which may be less good. If it’s OK, it passes. I think this is a blind spot! Because what you are voting for is the head count, not the goodness or badness of the case. Even the three indicators we used in the second-level deliberation, public welfare, budget feasibility, and legality. In fact, I think these three indicators are very basic, but he can’t tell whether the case is good or bad!

Chapter 15 Diverse participation of students

Democratic learning in participatory budgeting Campus Training and Engagement Competition: Planting New Seeds of Civic Engagement Accompanying students in schools: Becoming a frontline democracy worker

Chapter 16 How to evaluate participatory budgeting

Will there be a fight between evaluation indicators? Whose perspective determines the relative importance of evaluation indicators? We can find that participants from different social backgrounds may have different focused goals, and there may be conflicts between some goals or evaluation indicators. This is a dilemma often faced when implementing participatory budgeting activities. Under these difficulties, training, education, and improvement of citizen literacy may be an important core to solve these problems. Through training, civil servants involved in civil society and implementation can understand the significance of the activities, show a more inclusive mind and good deliberation skills, and can also make proposals more feasible to implement through training courses, so that the results of the activities can achieve better results. Therefore, it is important to measure the effectiveness of the “training effect”. This is also where participatory budgeting is most different from other citizen participation activities. On the one hand, the activity promotes the deepening of democracy, allowing participating people and civil servants who implement the activity to learn democracy and cultivate their civic literacy; on the other hand, it improves public services, makes public services more relevant to the needs of local people, improves the opportunities for disadvantaged groups to obtain public fund allocation, and practices social justice.

How to finally judge the score of each indicator? How to quantify? In addition to the four layers in the indicator structure in the previous section, below the fourth layer, there is also a fifth layer, which is “operationalization of evaluation indicators”, which means how to measure or judge their levels. For example:

How to evaluate participants is diverse.

What are the common evaluation indicators currently used in practice mainly evaluating? Proposal completion budget execution rate But neither is good enough.

Chapter 17 How can one be punished for being the leader?

People may not have fulfilled their “civic responsibilities” during the participatory budgeting process

The proposal was not carefully considered and the proposer stopped participating after the residents’ meeting.
The content of the proposal has been revised, and the executable “conceptual project” does not meet expectations.
It takes a long time to complete the case and implement it. Contacting the hospital is quick and effective.
The execution of a completed case was overturned by local residents, and the proposer withdrew the case or closed it early. After repeated deliberation, avoid the occurrence of liability situations The original intention of citizen participation is to share the decision-making process originally monopolized by the government with the people. When the democratic parties fail to fulfill their civic responsibilities in every aspect of participatory budgeting and the content of the proposals is of poor quality, although they do share the decision-making power from the administrative agencies, they may only share the power of wasting public funds. In this way, the good intentions of citizen participation are lost.

In order to ensure the quality of citizen participation in decision-making and avoid the situation of being the master of the country but being held accountable, the proposer should be allowed to return to the community to dialogue with the people. Democracy comes at a cost, and those with power must assume more obligations and responsibilities. It is recommended that more physical communication channels be added during the proposal review stage, such as citizen cafes, public hearings, briefings, symposiums, workshops, on-site surveys, etc., so that the proposer can promote the concept, persuade the public, and ensure that the proposal meets the needs of the community.

Chapter 19 The Conflict between Direct Democracy and Indirect Democracy

Can MPs overturn proposals passed through i-voting? Members questioned:

Does PB have institutional legitimacy? The intention is to circumvent the legitimate supervision of parliament in the name of citizen participation.

PB Is this new system necessary? According to Taipei City’s SOP, it takes a lot of time for PB to complete the entire process. It is better to submit a petition to the councillors, which may get satisfaction more quickly. There is no need to establish another channel.

Although councilors will face the dilemma of not knowing whether they can overturn proposals that have passed a series of procedures and i-Voting when reviewing the city government’s budget, the Haobei City Government’s current approach is still able to respect the budget review rights of councilors and still include the budget required for the vast majority of proposals in the next year’s budget and submit it to the council for review. There is no intention to circumvent parliamentary supervision and review. Therefore, the best way to demonstrate the wisdom of democracy is that on the one hand, parliamentarians should support the funding required for participatory budget proposals. On the other hand, after the budget is passed, they should use their supervisory powers to supervise the subsequent implementation of the proposals passed by their constituencies, and urge the administrative departments to implement the people’s expectations.

In this way, through the model of “people’s proposals and parliamentary supervision”, we can not only deepen our country’s direct democracy and citizen participation, but also make direct democracy and indirect democracy compatible with each other. The continuous implementation of completed proposals is the best embodiment of the mutual prosperity of the two democracies.

Chapter 20 Digital Participatory Budgeting

digital participatory budgeting With the development of information technology, digital technology is used to promote citizen participation. The goal is to eliminate paper processes and connect online participation platforms through digital technology, creating an electronic/digital participatory budget.

The medium of digital participatory budgeting Web-oriented tools designed for public engagement social networking sites

Chapter 21 Overview of the Operation of Participatory Budgeting

In order to comply with the budget law and local system regulations, it is necessary to cooperate with the Taipei City Government’s general budget preparation, review and execution process. Before the final compilation of the city’s general budget in May and June of each year, the confirmation of approved proposals is completed, and the required funds are included in the general budget and sent to the city council for review in September.

rolling correction Citizen Participation Committee The Citizen Participation Committee of the Yibei City Government is composed of the heads of relevant city government bureaus, as well as external experts, scholars, and social justice figures. The mayor serves as the chairman. It has three working groups: the Citizen Participation Group, the Open Data and Exploration Group, and the Participatory Budget Group. Among them, the Participation Budget Group is responsible for the study and discussion of Taipei City’s participatory budget system policies, implementation plans, and standard operating procedures, and is headed by the Civil Affairs Bureau as the main administrative organ. In addition to participating in participatory budget promotion education courses, residents’ meetings and first-stage review workshops from time to time, the public counselors of the Participation Budget Team also serve as moderators of the second-stage review workshops to ensure that the meetings proceed smoothly and allow review team members to evaluate the proposals in an informed manner. In addition to participating in the above-mentioned courses and meetings, the Public Counselor’s greatest contribution to participatory budgeting is that after the proposal is passed, the sponsoring and co-organizing agencies must regularly report the implementation status and difficulties of the proposal to the Participatory Budget Group. The Public Counselor can track the progress of the proposal in relevant meetings and assist in cross-agency communication and coordination to ensure that the proposal can be successfully completed.

The government-school alliance accompanies the school Through a team of teachers who accompany the school, we provide professional consultation and guidance to assist in the planning of promotion education courses and various proposal review meetings. The accompanying school teachers, students and work teams work together in the actual process of handling various promotion education courses and proposal review meetings, so that participatory budgeting can deeply cultivate local areas and achieve grassroots democracy, thus promoting the continuous promotion of participatory budgeting.

Proposal sponsor and co-organizer Through the implementation of the project management system, each PB proposal will assign the sponsoring and co-organizing agencies of the proposal based on the number of tasks that each agency in the proposal is responsible for. The sponsoring agency will be responsible for cross-agency coordination during the implementation of the proposal, as well as the coordination of proposal milestones and implementation progress. The implementation status will be explained to the proposer on a quarterly basis. If difficulties are encountered during the implementation process, the report will be reported at the Participation Budget Group meeting of the Citizen Participation Committee and members will be sought to provide suggestions or assist in coordination.

Chapter 22 SOP for Participatory Budgeting

Ke Wenzhe stated the two major features of Taipei City’s promotion of participatory budgeting:

The focus is on citizen education and bringing the new concept of direct democracy into Taipei City. Civil servants are actually involved. During the process, civil servants are directly involved through courses and briefing sessions, and opportunities for contact with citizen groups are also increased. We strive to integrate this entire system into the public service system. Citizen Proposal and Review Procedures Citizen Proposal and Review Procedures - Municipal Level

Citizen Proposal and Review Procedures - District Level

Standard SOP

Proposal review The Taipei City Government organizes residents’ meetings, inviting proposers and citizens who care about the proposal to discuss public issues, put forward improvement plans for the problems, and formulate proposal concepts, which are then voted on by on-site participants to finalize the proposal.
Proposal Review Workshop Due to the limited public understanding of the administrative process, if government bureaus are not involved to help evaluate the practical feasibility of the proposal before citizens enter the voting process, the subsequent implementation stage may be bumpy and difficult (Su Caizu, 2017). The first stage of the proposal workshop allows agency representatives to communicate face-to-face with the proposer to understand the actual situation, so that the follow-up process of the proposal can be smoothly promoted, and experts and scholars are invited to provide correction directions for the proposal content. In the second stage of proposal review, the citizen review panel will review the proposal content based on three indicators: “publicity”, “legality” and “budget feasibility”.

The Taipei City Participatory Budget Citizen Review Panel is composed of 12 members. The qualifications are as follows:

2 members of the government’s Citizen Participation Committee (acting as moderator and co-moderator).

1 reviewer (serves as deputy moderator and assists the moderator in conducting meetings).

2 citizens with advanced cards.

5 citizens with entry-level cards.

There were 2 proposers in the previous year (excluding the proposers from this administrative region).

Indicators and signals for “publicity”, “legality” and “budgetary feasibility” Based on the content of the proposal, application of regulations and budget, indicators for the degree of impact of the implementation of the proposal on “publicity”, “legality” and “budgetary feasibility” are designed. Innovative indicators of “red”, “yellow” and “green” are used to facilitate participating citizens to understand and check. Those with “high” or “moderate” feasibility of the three indicators can enter the subsequent voting process.

Public exhibition of proposals and plans Before the proposal voting, the public exhibition process of the proposal plan will be carried out, including “online exhibition” and “physical exhibition”. The public can have an in-depth understanding of the content of the proposal before the voting, and also have the opportunity to express their opinions on the proposal.
Proposal voting Through the participatory budget i-Voting process, those registered in Taipei City, or studying, working, or living in Taipei City, and who are over 16 years old, can vote online or go to the district office to authenticate and vote online. If the number of votes exceeds the district threshold and is within the upper limit of the record after sorting, the case can be recorded.
Budget evaluation, budget review and parliamentary supervision stages After the proposal is approved by voting, it will be officially recorded. The Civil Affairs Bureau will notify each responsible agency to conduct budget evaluation and planning. If there are many agencies involved, one agency will be designated as the main responsible agency (Project Manager). Those who have a budget for the current year can implement it first. If the proposal implementation funds need to be paid in the next year’s budget, or if a new budget is compiled for the next year, it will be handled according to the budget preparation process, and then the budget approval and supervision will be carried out by the parliament.

Flexibility under standardization

Convene an agency consensus meeting The Civil Affairs Bureau holds an agency consensus meeting every year to explain “improving the principles of designation and adjustment of responsible agencies,” “coordinating matters to improve the feasibility of proposals,” “budget planning schedules,” and “notes on the implementation of proposals,” etc., in order to improve consensus on the designation of responsible agencies before each district meeting, so that participating agency colleagues can understand the follow-up procedures and agency roles, and provide specific and detailed information for review team members to evaluate carefully.
Hold a pre-meeting meeting In order to confirm the responsible agency for the proposal as early as possible and conduct consultation or communication in advance, each district office holds a pre-deliberation workshop meeting after the residents’ meeting to invite relevant agencies of the proposal and designate the sponsoring agency for each case.
Direct execution mechanism “Direct implementation” was added in 2018. Some proposals are relatively simple and belong to a single responsible authority. If the existing budget of the current year is executable and the implementation can be completed in the current year, on the premise of the proposer’s consent and reaching a consensus with the responsible authority, there will be no subsequent proposal review and voting procedures. The agency will handle it in the current year, reducing the complicated process and completing the proposer’s idea as soon as possible.
Evaluation and processing mechanism After years of operation, proposals such as changes in traffic signal seconds, sidewalk settings, parking space planning or environmental beautification are public in nature. In order to avoid personal factors affecting the overall concept of regional planning and urban aesthetics, the proposal was discussed and approved by the public participation working group meeting. Projects including “traffic management”, “walking space”, “environmental painting or beautification”, etc., were submitted to the responsible authority for overall evaluation and processing with the approval of the proposer. The evaluation was completed before August of the year and reported to the working group meeting.

Advantages and key success factors of Taipei City’s promotion of participatory budgeting Chief supports authorization Fault tolerance correction Information disclosure and transparency Incorporate into budget process Limitations of Taipei City’s push for participatory budgeting Limitations of municipal issues

Municipal-level proposals are made in the form of issues, and special projects are being carried out to deal with issues of new immigrants and groups with disabilities. Currently, citizen proposals are limited to the district level. How can bureaus design topics and develop them from top to bottom, or allow citizens to propose bottom-up proposals? It still needs to be followed up to derive appropriate city-level topics.

Lack of online discussion model

At present, participatory budgeting in Taipei City is still conducted through on-site participation and discussion. With the trend towards younger and more convenient participation, whether it can be discussed online is worth looking forward to developing a model that transcends time and space. During the COVID-19 epidemic, various video and digital platforms have developed rapidly. In 2021 and 2022, attempts have been made to conduct deliberation workshops and residents’ meetings via online video. In the future, we may further think about how to make digital a normal mode of participation.

Chapter 23 Participatory Budgeting Development Plan

For Taipei citizens Progressive “Extension Education 369” series of courses Take root on campus Active citizenship materials have a foundation The proposal successfully brought happy changes to the people and gave participatory budgeting a strong appeal in the future. For students, the perspective gradually changes Courses that emphasize “participation” are closer to the “108 Curriculum”
For public servants In order to accelerate the equipping of civil servants with knowledge and concepts related to participatory budgeting, Taipei City held a “Civil Servant Training Course” from May to August 2015. The main trainees were officers of the Participating Budget Team and business-related personnel of various bureaus and district offices. Scholars and members of the Participating Budget Team were invited to have dialogues with civil servants to open up civil servants’ imagination of participatory budgeting and become seed personnel in various bureaus and offices of the city government.

Reversing the attitude of civil servants Promote organizational learning in various bureaus 3. Formation of the “Government-Academic Alliance” Grasp Taipei City’s advantageous resources and establish an expert database Strive for the recognition of experts and scholars and solidify the basis for cooperation between the two parties Establish government-study alliance and carry out cooperation new page Connected to the local area, administration accompanies evolution Assist local development and practice “university social responsibility”

Chapter 24 Supporting Plan for Participatory Budgeting

Operational supporting plan Auxiliary measures Project consultation counter setup and promotion plan Provide consultation on citizen participatory budget procedures, assist proposers in writing plans, and accept proposals.

Things to note when coordinating different opinions during the post-implementation stage of participatory budgeting Coordination and handling procedures when local public opinion has different opinions during the proposal implementation stage.

Execution mechanism In order to promote administrative efficiency, when a proposal meets certain conditions, it can be implemented directly.

Proposal exclusion and project evaluation mechanism

When considering some proposals, it is necessary to plan from the perspective of municipal integrity, or to consider the financial discipline of the municipal government. Some projects cannot be used as proposals or need to be evaluated by the agency as a whole.

Plan extension Entering Campus Series Project Committed to taking root in democratic literacy, we plan a series of campus promotion programs and activities.

Group proposal plan Consideration of specific issues that are not likely to receive attention within the existing participatory budget process allows planning non-profits or disability groups to apply for ad hoc procedures for specific issues.

Programmatic package plan Proposal briefing meeting residents meeting Proposal Review Workshop Implementation Plan Proposal Ballot Implementation Plan

Democracy | Dylan Chiang