Evidence to date: Dr Angela O’Hagan

  • Bruce Ryan: Oliver Escobar now introducing Angela O’Hagan.
  • Gorbals Ideas Fund: We’re in Edinburgh today talking all things participatorybudgeting. Angela O’Hagan presenting on 3 year PB Evaluation!
  • Glasgow Disability: Angela O’Hagan preview of @GCUEquality 3 year evaluation of participatory budgeting in Scotland: #PBmainstream = participation in how mainstream budgets are allocated: social care, education, environment ? We hope so! #budget4equality to break the cycle of exclusion.
  • Tressa Burke: Angela O’Hagan addresses #PBmainstream event about PB Evaluation over 3 years: to explore impact of PB on local communities, services, democracy & tackling inequality.
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan will talk about her findings relevant to mainstreaming. She thanks people for contributing to evaluation, and her collaborators. There is a lot of goodwill involved!
  • Bruce Ryan: This was Angela O’Hagan‘s commission, and the team’s methods:
  • Bruce Ryan: [The work] has characterised generations of PB in Scotland – [and how PB] reacts to (changing) policy environment.
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan asks ‘what is the core intention of PB?’ transforming decision-making or alternative to local level grant system, or both?
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan now talking about [different] perceptions of PB:
    • supporting community empowerment,
    • imposed by scotgov
    • reconfiguring spending routes
    • additional cost to local gov.
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan says we need to recognise this variance, i.e. that we can’t assume everyone is signed up to PB. Hence there will be range of institutional resistances and facilitations in public bodies.
  • Helen Mackenzie: Some people see participatorybudgeting as an additional cost to local service delivery. We saved 5% of the budget and improved outcomes when we tried it with our YourBuses contract.
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan says this variance is affecting how LAs react to the 1% PB aim. Then asks ‘where does PB fit within the changing landscape?’
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan says one big question is ‘why LAs?’/’why not other public bodies?’ Also how participatory is the national budget process? (So I tweet this question to a relevant scotgov official who will know, but unfortunately is too busy working on Scottish budget 2019-20 to answer straight away. No prizes for guessing who this official is.)
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan asks what is being mainstreamed: participation? decision-making? power-sharing? financial decision-making? participation in full range of local governance. Further questions in the slide:
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan says an area requiring much attention is equalities. Now asking what 1% means – is it a ceiling, a floor, getting people around table, a cost to LAs (that might leave other budgets short)?
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan says we need to balance participation and budgeting, need to be more inclusive and localised (which does mean there are costs), need more transparency in budget processes, clearer relationship and alignment between levels of governance.
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan says 3 there are Ts: transaction, transference, transformation. NB this is not a linear process.
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan says transference of resource and of responsibility happening in different amount in different places
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan asks whether PB is about/part of changing relationship between citizen and state? Transformational PB is about radical democratic change! Then asks where is PB in Scotland?
  • Bruce Ryan: Angela O’Hagan asks what is the goal? fixed value of X% to be allocated by PB?
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