Fife Council and Glasgow City Council have been heralded as Democracy Pioneers for their innovative work around participatory budgeting.

Nesta have announced 19 pioneers from across the UK who have brought democratic innovations to their communities. Each of the pioneers’ approaches have the potential to help reconnect people meaningfully to democracy.

Two pioneers and featured from Scotland, with Glasgow and Fife councils highlighted for their work around participatory budgeting, mini-publics and mainstreaming PB.

Glasgow City Council: Participatory Democracy for Climate Change

Glasgow City Council aim to build capacity and develop inclusive participatory democracy using deliberative dialogue and mini-publics to allocate budgets (PB), tackle inequality and inform policy with citizen’s panels. Going forward, Glasgow intends to work with local residents on the challenges of climate change and engage with them to find solutions that work for everyone.

Fife Council: Let’s Talk... Mainstreaming PB

Fife Council are building on the strong foundations laid by Scotland’s keen interest in participatory budgeting, to develop a bold democratic system and corporate framework for mainstreaming participatory budgeting that will support local people to get involved in decisions about mainstream service budgets.

You can read more about all of the innovations here.