National Participatory Budgeting Strategic Group

Overview

The National Participatory Budgeting Strategic Group was established in 2020, which has been designed to provide strategic direction for participatory budgeting (PB) in Scotland. The group meets on a quarterly basis to build capacity for PB across Scotland and ensure best possible practice.

Most recently, the group worked together to design and develop a high-level strategic plan to enable PB to be part of the core infrastructure of a constantly renewing democratic and community life across Scotland. Following the development of the ‘Framework for the Future of PB in Scotland’, the group works to continuously support the implementation of the framework.

This is a long term commitment with membership spanning across public sector agencies and organisations.

Annual report 2021 to 2022

The National Participatory Budgeting Strategic Group have co-produced their first annual report, highlighting activity of the group and the overall development of PB activity over recent years.

There has been an impressive scaling up of PB in Scotland, and this report celebrates some of this progress to date, with particular reference to the National PB Framework themes, including:

• culture shift, leadership and long term thinking
• cross-cutting priorities (climate justice)
• education
• health and wellbeing

The full report is available on PB Scotland’s website.

Members

• Martin Johnstone, Chair of National PB Strategic Group
• Angus Hardie, Scottish Community Alliance
• Anil Gupta, COSLA
• David Allan, Scottish Community Development Centre
• David Reilly, Poverty Alliance
• Ellie Craig, Member of Youth Scottish Parliament
• Gavin Crosby, Young Scot
• Jane O'Donnell, Scottish Government
• John Munro, COSLA
• Kathleen Glazik, Scottish Government
• Kevin Ditcham, Police Scotland
• Kirsten Urquhart, Young Scot
• Michael Wood, Association of Directors of Education Scotland
• Neil Ritch, National Lottery
• Oliver Escobar, University of Edinburgh
• Peter McNaughton, Association of Directors of Education Scotland
• Robert Emmott, Dundee City Council/Local Government Directors of Finance Group
• Susan Paxton, Scottish Community Development Centre
• Tressa Burke, Glasgow Disability Alliance
• Tricia Ma, Scottish Government (Secretariat)

Publications

National Participatory Budgeting Strategic Group: terms of reference