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The Newcastle Partnership - Newcastle’s local strategic partnership - brings local people and agencies together to make decisions that will benefit the whole community. So participatory budgeting - an idea that originated in Brazil, which allows local people to decide how public money should be spent - seemed a natural choice for us to pilot in the city.
General shots of Newcastle and a working group meeting.
Newcastle Partnership logo?
Kehri Ellis: The Newcastle Partnership is really keen to involve local people in local decision-making and I think participatory budgeting, or U decide as we are calling it, is a really great way of doing that.
Kehri talking head [with name and title as subtitle]
We decided to offer £30,000 for three wards to spend as they liked, to make their neighbourhoods cleaner, safer and greener. Step one was to get local people involved - but that wasn’t easy at first.
More of working group in action? Some shots of the three wards?
Shot of original letter?
Florrie: Firstly I would have received a letter in the post. I’m ashamed to say I don’t really read everything properly, so it would be like everything else that comes from the local authority, ‘Oh dear, what do they want now?’ then bin.
Bill: I understood it, but at the same time I was sceptical because it’s like everything else, they promise the earth, and it never materialises.
Florrie talking head [with name and working group member as subtitle]
Bill talking head [subtitle as above]
So we tried other approaches. We made our publications easier to read…and we talked to people
Shot of explanatory leaflet (green cover)
Hazel: Well, Maggie came and did a presentation at the Denton Partnership meeting and she gave us a lot of leaflets and explained everything, and I thought, ‘Oh, this is new, this is exciting.’ The fact that we were going to decide where the money was going to be spent.
Hazel talking head [subtitle as above]
But there was still some convincing to do
Hazel: Telling other people wasn’t so easy. Because I was telling them and you get, ‘We’ve heard it all before. You ask for stuff and you never get it.’ One of the big things was, ‘Fuff! They want to learn to spell! You don’t spell ‘you’ like that - that’s just laziness that!’ And it was just very frustrating. Because they just didn’t understand it.
Florrie: And I thought, ‘Oh dear, what happens if I think of something - do I then have to carry it out? I’m not sure I could do that, even though I would like to, I’d feel out of my depth.’
Hazel talking head
Florrie talking head
We tried a more direct approach…
Mara talking
Florrie: The lady explained what it was for, what would happen once you put a bid in, what the next steps would be and that they would be there for you all the way. And I thought, ‘Great, that’s good, now I know that I’m not on my own and don’t have to make the decisions, I’m quite happy to carry on now
Hazel: Mara came to the over 60s and where I couldn’t get it over to them, she got it across that there was something in it for them.
Florrie talking head
Hazel talking head
Once we had our working group, it was all systems go to encourage people to come forward with ideas and to plan our grand voting event.
Shot of publication inviting applications (black and white flyer)
Working group in action
Hazel: They needed someone else to think of the ideas because I don’t think that was very easy for them. A lot of them thought, ‘Oh well, we can get the doors done,’ and a lot of them didn’t realise that wasn’t what it was for. Or ‘We can get the buses changed.’ It had to be something with cleaner, greener, or safer.
Hazel talking head
Florrie: I run a local over 60s group, and my colleague runs another group in a nearby area and we decided to get together because being together means a bigger voice.
Florrie talking head
Everyone had their own ideas about what U decide could achieve
Bill: I’d like this project actually to get some youth in it to give them ideas to come forward.
Florrie: I would like to feel people would feel more involved in future, and more likely to come and ask, ‘What’s this about?’
Kehri: I think it’s really important to try and find new ways of engaging with the local community - ways that just might spark an interest or capture the imagination
Bill talking head
Florrie talking head
Kehri talking head
We received over 80 proposals for U decide money. Members of the working group got them down to 21 contenders for the grand voting event.
Working group meeting
Shot of flyer inviting people to the grand voting event
There was a great buzz as over 120 people turned up to hear about the ideas and vote for the winners
People turning up, shots of venue and general activity
Bill: it started off a bit slow but as things started to progress a bit with people, it started to improve. As I was walking back into the hall I could feel the atmosphere - everybody was buzzing, everyone was talking, and you got the feeling that - I’m very, very pleased that I was part of this because it was an absolutely fabulous feeling.
Bill talking head with event going on in background
Hazel: Oh it was jolly. Everyone was talking to everybody else - you know, what are you here for, and - it was brilliant.
Hazel talking head, and event, people talking to each other
Florrie: It was wonderful. I haven’t been to an event like that before because I’ve never bothered to get involved before, but it was wonderful and it was so good to see so many of our over 60s turning up to the event to support us, so it went really well, there was a lot of people there.
Florrie talking head, and event, shot of older folk
Then it was time for people to present their ideas, and they all had a different approach…
Excerpts from [can select if too many]:
Active community
Somewhere to sit
Be safe, not sorry
Bridging generations
Safe seats
Proper tools for job
Plenty to do (young girl who conquered fear of heights)
But they all wanted one thing….
Montage of people saying, ‘give us the money’
Florrie: I think the most unnerving thing was getting up in front of the camera. Well, to be honest, I let my associate do all the talking and I just stood looking important with pen and paper [laughs].
Florrie talking head
Tension mounted as people gave each idea a score from one to ten…
People filling in score sheet
And they were all added up…
Heidi inputting
Then the winners were announced
Montage of people jumping up when they heard they’d won
Bill: Instead of councillors deciding or whatever, the people themselves were deciding what they were going to do with it. And the people decided who was going to get the money. And that was the best part about it - you know they decided who. And the voting - you know, there wasn’t a lot between them. I thought the whole day went well and - mind they put on a good buffet an’ all [laughs].
Bill talking head, with montage continuing in background
People enjoying lunch
Hazel: I think one of the big things that came out of it was the link that can come between the old people and the young people. Because the first people that were on were the little ones and they were lovely, and it was at the end when they asked for the money and they said, ‘Please’, it was so lovely. But the young boys from Burnside that want to have the tea dance - they were brilliant and I actually went outside and spent a lot of time talking to them and they said, ‘Oh you will come to our dance, won’t you?’
Hazel talking head with background shots of Active community and Bridging generations presentations
Kehri: At the end of the day, everyone was largely a winner because even the projects that didn’t manage to get voted through were signposted to other sources of funding, so in a way U decide acted as a catalyst for bringing more money into the area.
And the future?
Kehri: You can’t go through an event like that and really feel the energy and the buzz that you get from the day, without thinking this has to go somewhere, this can’t stop here.
Kehri talking head with background shot of happy people leaving event
Page last updated: 14 March, 2012
