From speaking to local authorities across the country, it’s very clear that the next round of budget consultations will be some of the most difficult and most important that most people have been involved in. I think it’s fair to say there will be lots of demand for guidance on best practice, or at least some examples of public sector organisations who’ve been there and done it before. Given that, I thought it’d be helpful to share some practical examples from our experience of people using an online component in their budget cuts consultation.
We were fortunate enough to work with 3 councils facing cuts last financial year who chose to use our Budget Simulator to consult their residents online about how they should meet their deficit. Whilst the quick case studies below are all of people using the same underlying app, they also each customised it to their particular situation:
Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight faced a challenge of achieving a £5 million in savings. They needed a budget consultation tool that reflected their corporate initiatives of achieving this: either through reducing spend or increasing charges.
Residents were informed about the savings-approach of the consultation exercise, but were allowed to submit budgets that didn’t achieve that £5 million target. This allowed for a high response rate and the council was able to report on the consultation as a whole, along with how those who achieved the savings target opted to do so.
http://www.budgetsimulator.com/isleofwight
Exeter
Exeter had to achieve a 5% decrease in spend of their overall budget in ’10-’11. They had consulted on the budget successfully before, but this time wanted to put it out to as many residents as possible because of how important the conversation would be. They needed a tool that collected responses of how people would achieve that shortfall.
Delib built Exeter a Budget Simulator in which residents could raise or lower spending in each areas. However, an overall saving of 5% had to be achieved in order for the respondent to submit their budget. In doing this, Exeter ensured that every single response they received had successfully tackled the necessary cuts.
http://www.budgetsimulator.com/demo_exeter
Barnet
London Borough of Barnet had set out the mission to keep council tax as low as possible for residents in the forthcoming financial year. This meant that they had to be realistic about spending, and they wanted to convey this to residents.
We built them a Simulator customised to only permit residents to cut funds from spending areas. This allowed the authority to manage expectations as to the nature of the forthcoming budget and gather understanding of which services residents felt it was most important to retain funding.
http://www.budgetsimulator.com/demo_barnet
This customised apps approach is really our ideal model: we think apps plus service is the best way to support consultation professionals who need to get something done quickly and affordably, but that’s also appropriate to their area (which they’ll obviously know better than we do). Subtly modifying a ready-to-go app means you get a proven tool that’s cheaper and easier than commissioning something from scratch but also adapted to the nuances of your situation.
Of course, this is all taking the ‘internet’ part as a given – but then, it surely should be by now: the demand for, and benefits of, public interaction being available online make it pretty much impossible to ignore. Our aim is always to make it easy for government to better connect people with their decisions – and budget-setting is going to be a crucial decision this year, with the internet a necessary channel for public consultation. We’re expecting to see many more examples of effective online consultations on budget cuts over the coming months!
If you’ve got any questions, would like to find out more about these case studies or about Budget Simulator, just drop me a line: adam.cardew@delib.co.uk
