Tough budget decisions: getting citizen input on difficult choices
The challenge
Like many public sector bodies, Hull City Council found themselves facing challenging spending decisions. Given the difficult choices at hand, the Council wanted to ensure its citizens were engaged in the budgeting process.
As a Council statement explained, 'the central government grant for 2015/16 has been reduced by £23m, and means the money Hull City Council receives from government has reduced by £41m over two years and a total of £104m since 2010. This equates to a loss of £278 per head since 2010.'
This meant that there were no easy financial choices for Hull – cuts had to be made, it was just a matter of where and how. Conscious of the complexity of the issues, the Council wanted to ensure the information was presented in an engaging way that everyone could understand.
Our approach
Hull City Council decided to use Budget Simulator in their public consultation. Not only did this ensure they had an effective online response method, it also provided an engaging and easy-to-understand way for people to get involved. As one respondent commented, 'I appreciate the opportunity for consultation and this tool is intuitive and easy to use'.
And, perhaps most significantly of all, the simulation approach really helps participants to appreciate the difficulty of the decisions facing the Council.
The results
After a wide-reaching publicity campaign, including promotion to their resident panel and via public access PCs in libraries, Hull saw some 4,000 visitors to their Budget Simulator, with about 10% of those going on to complete the exercise and submit their budget – across a demographically representative sample.
A number of key themes emerged in people's responses, including the suggestion to increase Council Tax charges. The responses received via Budget Simulator went on to further inform the Council's thinking and decisions. More than that, though, the process also increased the amount of empathy between the Council and citizens. One resident's telling comment expressed the view of many: "I can't do this. I don't know where you might make economies from the information given. My heart aches for the decisions the government is forcing you to make."
The use of Budget Simulator as a part of our budget setting engagement work has been extremely useful. It has helped us to engage and involve our residents in a very complex and difficult process. The comments that we got back from residents show that those who participated got a real insight into the decision-making process that touches so many people's lives.
Delib is a govtech leader specialising in consultation and engagement, trusted by over 600 government organisations worldwide, including major planning projects. Since 2004, we've been building secure, accessible digital platforms to make participation simpler, fairer, and more inclusive. Our flagship product, Citizen Space, was built in collaboration with the UK government and has supported more than 11 million responses across over 110,000 democratic activities.