Participatory budget in Lichtenberg

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Participatory budget in Lichtenberg
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Berlin-Lichtenberg

• approximately 260.000 habitants
• One of 12 municipalities in berlin
• five districts

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The way to the PB

• 2001 decision ofparliament for getting started a
  pilot project
• 2002 getting financial grant for developing PB
  (80.000 )
• Developing transparent and comprehensable public
  budget of Lichtenberg
• information campaign and workshops in order to
  find local promotors in the civil society
• In 2004 decision to start PB on 2007 as well as
  a participative framework of deliberative dialogue

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Decision-making of Lichtenbergs PB

• strategic group (strategic issues)
• Members were habitants, local civil servants and
  politicans
• Only definition of the conception of
  particapatory framework
• Leading group (decision-making in operative
  affairs)
• includes representatives and local civil servants
• Draws decisions during the implementation
  participatory budgeting process
• Assesment group(during the process)
• Ten elected citizens and the local civil servants
  from the organizing group
• Only task assesment of proposals into functional
  and disfunctional one

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Financial facts of Lichtenberg

• expenditures in Lichtenberg 2007
• 511 Millions
• flexible expenditure is the Topic of PB
• 30 Million Euro is the money , the people
  decided on

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How to get participation ? gtdifferent ways of
deliberation

• Task develop proposal, vote for proposals and
  priorize them (phase modell, five supporters)
• Open councils
• central assembly (at begin and finish of
  PB-process)
• Decentral councils in the five quarter of
  Lichtenberg
• meetings with focus on a topic or minority
• Internet
• http//www.buergerhaushalt-lichtenberg.de
• Represantive research
• 10.000 questionaires with 1420 answers from
  citiziens

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Final open council

• contents
• Priorising of proposals
• Inclusion of results from questionaire, internet
  und open council
• Giving of the PB-results to major and president
  of parliament
• 2006 42 projects were voted of 367 (119 prio gt
  42) proposals and are part of the public budget

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Accountability

• Explanation of the agreed and refused results of
  Participatory budget process
• Publication and discussion of the final results
  of the public budget of Lichtenberg

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Evaluation

• Academical Evaluation of achieving the
  aims/targets of the Participatory Budget
• Workshop with politicans, citizens and public
  servants
• Agreement about changes in the rules of the
  public budgeting process

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Results of PB 2006

• 42 proposals were created and are in progress
• 4500 habitants were involved into PB
• Despite of the election time all parties
  supported the PB
• Topic of PB got spread to investment expenditures
  for the next process
• gt the first real participatory budgeting process
  with participation of citizenship in Germany

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The german way of PB

• Strictly focussed on political-administrative
  system
• weak civic movement leads to a lack of
  selforganisation of the PB-process
• Promotors are in special majors
• Main aim is the deliberation of peoples will and
  its transformation in the budget process

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Finish

• In Germany the participatory budget is similar
  to the monster of loch ness.
• Everyone is talking about, but nobody has seen
  it before.
• Now you know them !