This is a CTP of initiative: Participatory Budgeting Amsterdam (PB Amsterdam) (Netherlands)
On December 15th 2015, the district board committee (an elected) body linking the Municipality of Amsterdam to its districts in Amsterdam East met and discussed the approval of the area plans for 2016. During this meeting a resolution was accepted saying that (at least) 20% of the budget of 2017 falls under the responsibility of the citizens of the neighborhood.
The area coordinator considers this moment critical because it symbolizes the political support for budget monitoring which she has seen growing lately. “I notice in our city and in the district that we really want, which is very important. And that it is politically supported in [Amsterdam] East”. An important motivation for the municipality to support budget monitoring is its pursuit of transparency as one of its priorities. Even though citizen engagement is high on the agenda in Amsterdam East, the first involvement of civil servants with budget monitoring was done without direct mandate by the district board committee. This CTP marks the moment that their engagement was backed by the political body (the district board committee).
The acceptance of the resolution in December 2015 was crucial to the area coordinator because it takes budget monitoring a step further – from monitoring and advising on policy priorities to instilling citizens with decision-making authority. This political approval also meant that the engagement of civil servants is not free of obligations anymore: “You [as civil servant] are put to work. It is not anymore just a hobby for me or for one of the aldermen, but it is also an assignment of the official organisation.” “Even though there is the political will, it still is hard to deliver. Then it dawns on you as civil servants, this is something you need to take up.”
The district Amsterdam East has a history of mutual respect and collaboration between citizens, civil servants and politicians – also known as area focused working which was slowly introduced since 2010. In Amsterdam East it has always been important to engage and involve citizens in policy making. One important engagement moment with citizens was a survey conducted in September 2012 to collect citizens’ perspectives on the neighbourhood. It was the first in a row of successful collaborations between the citizens, other parties and the municipality (see also RELATED EVENTS).
Another important practice that led to the approval of the resolution was the allocation of a ‘civil society budget’. This budget has previously been allocated to welfare organizations but has recently been made available for inhabitants: “[It] is a free budget that can be invoked by the neighbourhood and it gives civil servants the possibility to not only collect the neighbourhood’s wishes but also facilitate them”. According to the area coordinator, this ongoing engagement in the neighbourhood led up to this CTP: “Those have all been small steps, which now lead to the question of the board to have 20% of the area plan budget in 2017 to be decided upon by the neighbourhood where to spend it on”.
According to Wittmayer and Rach (2016), an open attitude between municipality and citizens followed from their close collaboration within a national investment programme in this neighbourhood. Activities employed during this investment programme contributed to strong social cohesion and strengthened several active communities in the Indische Buurt. The presence of this strong social capital is another important condition leading to the emergence of budget monitoring and eventually to this CTP.
A few key people who initiated budget monitoring play an essential role in bringing the initiative to the next level and tactically engaging with the municipality. One of the initiators shares provocative and utopian ideas about the way the local municipality should be organized and the involvement of citizens in that. While at first his ideas might sound crazy and unrealistic, they open up pathways towards change. As put by the area coordinator: “sometimes those are very weird test balloons that are set free by him, but it always sets something in motion”.
The ongoing developments towards more citizens-oriented practices of the municipality fits well in the current zeitgeist of a changing welfare state and a more facilitative government: “we expect much more from citizens. That is something contributing to this. It is the zeitgeist that plays a role here.”.
As mentioned in the co-production section already, in September 2012, citizens teamed up with civil servants, people from the police, housing corporations and other professionals working in the neighbourhood to hold a survey on the streets to gather input on the inhabitants’ wishes and needs. “It was us, together with the inhabitants; even the police and employees from the housing corporation took part to really ask people and to discuss what they find important”. This moment was crucial because it symbolizes a partnership: “that we together went on the streets in 2012, and that we said, we are doing it together with you, we are partners instead of ‘we the government’ and ‘you the citizens’”. Their findings resulted in a ‘citizens’ perspective paper’ which was presented to the District Council (the predecessor of the District Board Committee) in October 2012. This moment in 2012 was an important step in building a constructive relation between the municipality and the citizens. The attitude was described as follows: “We [the municipality and other professionals] are not more important than you [inhabitants], we do not have more knowledge, but different knowledge and it is together that we can achieve much more. This was a first important step in 2012. It was a small step but I think that it was very important, the only direction possible from here was to move forward.”
In March 2014 a large municipal reorganization took place (see CTPMunicipal Reorganization). This reorganisation included a shift of the budget and policy-making authority from the districts to the City of Amsterdam. Across Amsterdam, the district councils were replaced by district board committees. The latter are considered the eyes and ears of the district for the City. They are also responsible for drawing up a vision for the area and the area plan, together with the area team (of civil servants). It was thus a formalization of the area-focused working practice.
During the last budget monitoring iteration in 2015, the citizens participating in budget monitoring teamed up in duo’s with a civil servant to work out specific themes for the area plan of the Indische Buurt. This process resulted in the first area plan co-created by inhabitants with civil servants. The approval of this co-created area plan was crucial: “the political support it shows. And it very much legitimizes our work to take it further.”
Even though the Indische Buurt knows a longer tradition of collaboration between district and citizens, the road towards this CTP was not paved. Not all civil servants were particularly in favour of a collaboration with citizens and of budget monitoring. They showed resistance. The contestation with regard to this CTP is not specifically related to the actual moment of accepting the resolution. Rather it concerns the journey leading up to it and relates mainly to internal resistance within the municipality.
The resistance from civil servants was multiple. According to the area coordinator, the changing responsibilities led to “resistance […] by a number of people who are afraid to let go of a sort of power”. Civil servants were “afraid to lose their power or that they might need to do things which they were not capable of doing”. Also the time needed to invest in such collaboration with citizens was considered an obstacle to support neighbourhood initiatives such as budget monitoring: “people are usually already very busy and then this comes on top. It is often seen as something extra”. While this is true for the beginning of the collaboration: “what we are now also trying to show with budget monitoring is that when you do it right, you will have less work [later in the process]. It is not all extra, but that is how it feels in the beginning”.
The internal contestation is something, which “needs to be overcome by showing that inhabitants come up with very useful ideas. If you know your neighbourhood well, you won’t run into big surprises and if you do you are not doing your work well”.
Collaborating with a passionate group of citizens also puts pressure on the civil servants: “the group from the neighbourhood often wants to go a step further than we can or want”. This can be seen in combination with the visionary actor mentioned under CO-Production, that an important element is reaching further and trying to push boundaries.
Also outside the municipality but from the citizens and parties in the neighbourhood itself critics were conveyed: “inhabitants think that professionals are not knowledgeable [about the neighbourhood] because they don’t know the neighbourhood, and they [the professionals] on their turn say: you can not do this, you need to be a professional for this”.
The area coordinator first got involved in budget monitoring and started collaborating with the citizens during their second iteration in 2012. She had not foreseen this CTP: “No, back then I could not imagine, and also not in 2012, I have not thought of there is where I want to arrive, rather I took it one step at a time”.
The reorganisation of the municipality was decided by national decree in February 2013 and it was unclear what kind of influence it would have on the ground. According to the area coordinator: “So much in terms of changes came upon us; in 2012 I did not know about the new structure and organisation of Amsterdam and what that would do with us”.
The main learning of this CTP lies in the process leading up to it. This process can be considered as an experimentation of area based working in a very concrete example – budget monitoring. While not knowing what would come out of it, how it should be done and whether they would succeed, the area coordinator together with the area team supported the initiative and constantly built bridges in her internal organization (see CONTESTATION). Eventually, they persevered.
Welcoming the unknown, dealing with it and having the courage to persevere is what the area coordinator identifies as a lesson: “What I always consider important is that you really need to have a sort of courage for this; and once in a while think that you have no idea what it will lead to, because we did not yet know that in 2012; and also the neighbourhood did not yet know what they were getting into. Then you have to realise that it is possible that it will fail. And if it fails, it is bad luck and we continue in another way. But you have to be really courageous to step into something without knowing what it will lead to”. Sometimes, one can also be unsure whether what one imagines doing will work and what the result will be. This should not hold you back: “Sometime you just need to think: let’s go for it”.
Even though the district board committee now acknowledges all the hard work that has been done in the Indische Buurt (such as supporting budget monitoring and engaging with citizens in the neighbourhood), the area coordinator still feels that what she was doing at that time – experimenting – should have political backing earlier in the process: “In the understanding that we are going for something like this, it can succeed and fail, and that you do not hold someone accountable”.
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