Case study: Lincolnshire Police Authority's Budget Simulator

The super-short version

The Authority needed to consult on their budget online. They used a deluxe Budget Simulator, set up within 2 weeks for a cost of £3,695. They got 1,000+ people participating in their budget consultation online.

'The Budget Simulator did just what we wanted. It took budget setting out of the meeting room and into the hands of the public.'
John Horton, Community Engagement Officer, Lincolnshire Police Authority

The longer version

The situation

Like all police authorities, Lincolnshire has a duty to engage with its residents on local policing matters. Given the serious financial issues facing the public sector, budgets were high on everyone's agenda and a key area for public engagement.

Lincolnshire Police Authority had consulted with residents on its budget in previous years but for financial year 2009-10 they wanted to improve on past practices by creating a richer dialogue and opening up budget consultation to more communities in Lincolnshire.

John Horton, the Authority's Community Engagement Officer, was charged with bringing this about: 'in a county as large and as rural as Lincolnshire, we knew that using an online tool was a great way to reach out to different communities. We wanted to involve as many people as we could in the consultation and at the same time we had a new site that we wanted to drive traffic to. Our hope was to do find something that was engaging, useful and affordable to take our consultation directly into people’s homes.'

This exercise had to be proven, affordable, quick to set up and easy for a relatively small organisation to implement.

The Simulator

Lincolnshire Police Authority chose to use a deluxe version of Budget Simulator to consult their residents on the '10-'11 budget. Key features included:

Engaging consultation model
Budget Simulator lets users set the budget for themselves and see the effects on spending.

Deliberative information
By providing background information on each spending area, instant feedback on changes made to spending and consequence information before submission, Budget Simulator ensures deliberation on the part of the user and encourages thoughtful submissions.

Simple, useful reporting
The Authority could both check on participation rates and comments received while the consultation was live and export the final data in .csv format for more detailed analysis.

The benefits

Having been used by other Police Authorities, including South Wales and Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire PA could have confidence in the Simulator being a proven system for consulting on a police budget.

Lincolnshire Police Authority's instance of the tool was deployed, populated with the correct content and ready to use publicly within 2 weeks of the Authority opting to use Budget Simulator.

During the month-long consultation period, around 1,000 people submitted their opinions on the Authority's budget. This also helped drive traffic to the new website and introduce residents to connecting with their Police Authority online.

The Authority were also able to take the Simulator to schools and public meetings to promote the consultation and allow other groups of people to have their say.

The results

The results of the consultation meant that the Police Authority members were better informed when it came to making the ever difficult decision of setting annual budgets. Members were aware of the real needs, thoughts and concerns of local people, and were able to reflect those in their decisions.

Communities and partners have shown a lot of interest in the Budget Simulator, and John has even found himself explaining the concept to the police in Poland, for whom involving the public is a very new concept.

Talk to us

If you have any questions, would like to know more about this case study or would like to get started with Budget Simulator for yourself, get in touch with us: info@delib.net | 0845 638 1848