Participatory budgeting: how it works

In brief:

1. Participatory budgeting lets residents decide how part of a local authority’s capital budget is spent, within an envelope and scope set in advance.
2. The process follows four steps: call for projects, eligibility review, voting, then implementation and reporting.
3. A dedicated digital platform generally supports each of these steps, from submitting proposals to tracking their implementation.
4. The process succeeds as much through the tools chosen as through support for residents least at ease with digital tools.

Participatory budgeting is a process through which a local authority opens up part of its capital budget to its residents’ decisions. Rather than elected officials alone, residents propose projects and then vote for the ones that get funded, within an envelope and scope the local authority sets in advance. Adopted over recent years by a growing number of municipalities, departments and regions, the process now relies, for most of its course, on digital tools.

The steps of participatory budgeting and their digital tools

Participatory budgeting is not just a vote: it is a multi-step process, each step able to rely on a different digital tool.

This four-step sequence structures nearly every participatory budgeting process, whether run by a small municipality or a large local authority: only the size of the envelope, the length of each step and the nature of the tools used vary from one territory to another.

What participatory budgeting is

Participatory budgeting refers to a process through which a local authority lets residents choose how to spend part of its capital budget, rather than its operating budget. This sets it apart from standard consultation or dialogue processes, where residents give an opinion the authority remains free to follow or not: in participatory budgeting, residents’ votes directly decide the outcome, within the framework set beforehand.

This framework usually includes a thematic scope (public space, quality of life, ecological transition, depending on the authority’s priorities), an overall amount allocated to the process and, often, a cap per project. These limits set participatory budgeting apart from a simple suggestion box: they ensure every euro residents vote for corresponds to a budget line that is actually available and can be executed.

The process is not tied to a particular level of local government: municipalities, inter-municipal bodies, departments and regions have each adapted it to their own scale, with envelopes and project scopes that vary considerably with the size of the territory concerned.

Collecting and reviewing proposals

The first phase of participatory budgeting opens a submission period, during which any resident meeting the published conditions can submit a project. This phase almost always relies on a digital platform, which structures submissions through a standardised form: the project’s purpose, its location, a cost estimate, and sometimes a visual or plan attached by the project’s author.

Once submissions close, the local authority’s staff review each proposal against eligibility criteria published in advance: does the project fall within the authority’s remit, does it fit the envelope and cap set, is it technically feasible within the planned timeframe. This review relies on a case management tool that centralises files and lets the different services, technical, financial and legal, give a coordinated opinion on each project before it goes to a vote.

Projects deemed eligible are then published, usually on the same platform used for submissions, so residents can review them before voting opens.

Online voting and its safeguards

The voting phase is the most visible moment of the process for residents. It generally relies on an online voting platform, which has to balance two requirements: ease of use, so participation stays accessible to as many people as possible, and minimum integrity safeguards, so no resident can vote more than once and the outcome of the vote stays reliable.

These safeguards usually rest on an identification step for each voter, which can rely on a verified email address, proof of residence or of a connection to the territory, or an identifier issued by the local authority. The level of rigour chosen depends on the authority’s resources and the significance of the vote, and no national rule sets a single format for electronic voting in participatory budgeting, unlike political elections.

Many local authorities keep in-person voting sessions alongside online voting, at the town hall or during local events. This choice directly reflects a digital inclusion approach: a fully digital process would effectively exclude residents who are less equipped or less comfortable with digital tools, even though the aim of participatory budgeting is to widen participation in local decisions.

Tracking implementation and reporting back to residents

The vote does not close the process: winning projects then need to be carried out, and this implementation phase often takes longer than the previous steps, particularly when projects involve public space development. A project tracking tool lets technical services document each project’s progress, from preliminary studies through to delivery.

This information is usually reported back to residents on a dedicated space within the platform used for submissions and voting, which shows each winning project’s status, sometimes as a map showing all of the projects funded across the territory. This reporting plays a decisive role in the trust residents place in the process from one edition to the next: a project that was voted for but never materialises, or whose progress stays invisible, weakens participation in later editions.

Conditions for a participatory budgeting process to succeed

Digital tools make each step of the process easier, but they are not enough on their own to guarantee its success. Several conditions come up repeatedly in the experience of local authorities that sustain their participatory budgeting process from one edition to the next.

The first concerns the clarity of the rules: a scope that is too vague for projects leads to many ineligible submissions and discourages project authors, while clear rules published before submissions open steer proposals toward what the authority can actually fund and deliver. The second concerns support for less digitally equipped residents, through drop-in sessions, workshops to help with project submissions or in-person voting sessions, the same equity condition raised above. The third concerns transparency in the review process: explaining why a project is deemed ineligible, rather than silently dropping it from the list, limits the sense of arbitrariness and keeps trust in the process intact.

Finally, consistency with the territory’s other channels for citizen participation also matters: a participatory budgeting process run in isolation, disconnected from the other channels through which the local authority engages with residents, renews less easily than a process built alongside the full range of online services offered to residents.

Participatory budgeting and other digital channels for citizen participation

Participatory budgeting is just one of the tools a local authority uses to involve residents in local decisions, and it fits into the broader way a territory organises its services around data and digital use. It differs from a simple online consultation in that residents’ votes directly decide a budget outcome, rather than producing a non-binding opinion.

This decision-making dimension brings participatory budgeting closer to other records subject to publication and traceability requirements: the projects selected and the amounts committed are, like other decisions made by the local authority, subject to a digital publication requirement that determines their enforceability and how they are tracked over time. The connections between these different tools, participatory budgeting, resident-facing services and the publication of records, gradually form a consistent set of digital tools supporting the relationship between a local authority and its residents.

Frequently asked questions