As part of my daily activities with Delib, I’ve been speaking to council employees who are involved in budget consultation at their various establishments. Because of this, I’ve been fortunate enough to quickly gain a good understanding of the differing councils’ perspectives on consultation.
As you’d expect, there are some councils that run very extensive budget consultation and some that, it would be fair to say, seem to be avoiding the fact that the public might be interested in participating. However, over the past few weeks, I’ve witnessed a trend that appears to be attached to the current financial climate.
It seems that more and more councils are planning not to run a budget consultation this coming year (2010/2011) owing to the fact that they need to make cuts in their spending.
Now, I can understand a council’s perspective of not wishing to raise the public expectation that they can influence the priorities for the coming budget but I do feel as if the outlook is slightly skewed here. If budget consultation is all about engaging with people and exchanging a better understanding of each others priorities and constraints, then it’s arguably more important to consult when undergoing cuts, rather than when there’s more headroom in the budget. Surely, this would allow for a better buy-in to the decisions made, after a discourse has occurred?
It would be interesting to see whether this opinion prevails if councils’ budgets continue to grow tighter in the future and what other people’s thoughts on the subject are. Is it equally, less, or more important for you to have a say on what services are cut during these difficult times?
