This is a CTP of initiative: Participatory Budgeting Amsterdam (PB Amsterdam) (Netherlands)
The CTP consists of a new practice, namely that civil servants cooperate with citizens on a theme and that the outcome thereof is taken up in a policy plan. In November 2015 the municipality agreed to take part in the working groups of the budget monitoring training. This not only meant participation of government in budget monitoring, it also changed the way the government made their area plans (see Wittmayer and Rach 2015, page 27). As outlined by the co-founder of the CBB: “that, at a certain point in time, we are not talking about a training budget monitoring anymore, or a course citizens budgeting, but that it has become a working practice of the government to again and again make a neighbourhood agenda with the citizen”.
This CTP mainly focuses on the influence of budget monitoring on the working processes within the municipality. In total eight working groups were initiated (see Wittmayer and Rach (2015) page 21): “This has to [...] be integrated in the way of working in the city. Thus we just did it, to set up permanent working groups per topic consisting of inhabitants and civil servants”.
The CTP is critical because it involves a discussion on specific content between two actors who have not done this before: “together with the professionals of the neighbourhood, together with the government, we look at the spending”. The co-founder of the CBB expects it to be turning on a longer term if eventually also political actors join the table and they together asses if collective goals are achieved through the expenditures: “This exercise will not work in one year, one needs 2-3 years for this, to finally gather in the offices where professionals, the neighbourhood, and the politicians can meet and assess things intermediately if something does not go good. How can you arrange for your tendering procedure in a way that makes it possible for the neighbourhood to also participate? That is a kind of revolution”.
There are three levels, on which we can define people and circumstances, which were important for the CTP to happen: 1) the local initiative has become involved in an international network promoting open governance, 2) there is a strong support from some people working at the district board committee and city district level and 3) new people got involved in the initiative.
Firstly, the CBB appointed a new director in September 2014 after the former director had resigned. The new director is not involved in the local initiative in Amsterdam. A local group called ‘Indische Buurt community’ takes care of budget monitoring in the Indische Buurt on behalf of the CBB. This group is coordinated by a trainer budget monitoring. Instead the director of the CBB is often invited at several international conferences about their successful experiences in the Indische Buurt.
Secondly, after the successful first ‘co-creation process’ in the Indische Buurt, the CBB started several pilots in other cities in the Netherlands in October 2014. These pilots took place in the cities of Hoogeveen, Emmen, Den Haag and Utrecht and were co-financed by the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations. As outlined by the co-founder of the CBB: “[…] and we thus developed the methodology further, the ideas”.
The co-founder explains that after former activities such as the public speech, the citizens’ perspective paper, the survey, the common language, there was a gap of what to do next: “After the ritual dance was done, we thought: ‘what now?”.
Two municipal departments are involved in the working groups: a department ‘neighborhoods’ and a department ‘policymaking’. As outlined by the co-founder of the CBB: “the department ‘neighborhoods’ talks with us about our needs and priorities and the department ‘policymaking’ needs to deliver substantive knowledge and financial resources. And each time, they make a team, and because we have eight topics, somebody from the policymaking-pool needs to take part“.
The initiative has good working relations with two civil servants of the department ‘neighborhoods’. Those are the area coordinator of the Indische Buurt and the area manager. The civil servant who worked on the neighborhood budget instrument (see CTP ’Launch of neighborhood budget instrument’) has been promoted from the district to the central city administration. He is still involved for the software but does not play a strategic role anymore. On the level of the Municipality of Amsterdam there is no one supportive of the initiative currently: “At the central city, one finds bureaucratic institutions. There they think that we want to have everything protocoled and overviewable”. The initiative needs someone supportive at the central city: “You need to find an Alderman who wants to keep his back straight and wants to say: ‘I like this and I will do this’”.
Events prior to the CTP are also discussed in CTP ‘forced co-production’.
In June 2012 the public speech of one of the participants of the first budget monitoring iteration in the Indische Buurt convinced the district municipality to become involved. The municipal reorganization (see CTP municipal reorganization) involved an adjustment of the budget authority and let to a municipal budget which was not accessible anymore. This demanded a different approach to budget monitoring. Together with the lesson learned that budget monitoring benefits from a thematic approach, this led to the idea of working in thematic working groups.
In 2015, a new publication, called ‘Follow the money’, focuses on these latest developments. All these developments led to an increase in attention for the CBB.
After the area plan was co-created by the budget monitoring group and the district municipality, they started deliberating about how and which steps to take next. The area plan had to be finished before thinking about the future: “'How are we going to put this to work? How are we going to do it? But first the area plan had to be finished completely to understand how we would put it to work. Thus, we had a number of meetings with the district municipality to see how to finish and sharpen it. And then time is spent to think about the proposal”.
Within the municipality the contestation is twofold. On the one hand, there is the question of whom are you dealing with in terms of hierarchical position. The co-founder of the CBB makes a distinction between ‘managers’ and more operational staff. “But you just see that on the level of operational civil servants and low management you have people who sympathize with it. Then you have middle management that is the most conservative phenomenon that ever was invented. Controllers without identity, they are against”. The CBB had been in contact with operational level staff for creating the common work practices. While they agreed, they were still having issues internally: “Yes, it has to be like this but I do not succeed to convince my boss”.
On the other hand, another point of contestation in the municipality lies in the fact that financial data is not always available or that the central municipal units are responsible. As outlined by the co-founder of the CBB: “And nobody waits for a civil servant from the city to call about how much money have you spend on this and that. Thus, I foresee resistance there.”
A last point of contestation concerns the fact that budget is needed for organizing budget monitoring courses. As outlined by the co-founder of the CBB: Although it is not much, “it is not there in excess. And we are not that good in applying for money”.
This CTP, the uptake of common work practices in policy cycles, in itself had been a goal of the CBB. In that sense, they have worked towards it and had hoped for it. As such it was not completely unexpected: “As we have been busy in the Indische Buurt already for a long time with letting things being done differently, it was of course in line with what we expected that would happen”.
It is not an endpoint however and the common work practice needs to be evaluated in terms of how it will work out in reality: “And if this goes well, now, we still have to see that, then we have reached our initial goal: bringing the municipality closer to the inhabitants so as to think about something in the neighbourhood together, budget it and then monitor the quality” .
The co-founder of the CBB learned from this CTP about strategically and tactically positioning budget monitoring in the municipality.
Firstly, to change dominant working practices of the municipality, you need to involve it from the beginning. As put by the co-founder of the CBB: “That this is a pre-condition for changing primary working processes”. As described under contestation, civil servants on operational level play an important role because they are the first to sympathize with such new practices. Middle management is conservative and a barrier for new practices, while higher levels in the municipal organization are more open: “And then you come to the higher and strategic-level civil servants and they also do not agree with it. But they do not know what this is about and they hear the goals and the innovations and then they become ecstatic. We converted the initial opponents, by skipping middle management and talking to the strategists to ensure that the middle will take care of it. Changing the structure of the government is not a goal in itself. We are not consultants, we are citizens.”
Secondly, the co-founder explains that they still need a better lobby for budget monitoring, such as a stronger proponent within the municipality/politics, who supports budget monitoring rather than perceiving it as bureaucratic procedure. At this moment, the co-founder does not see a person like that and in that sense foresees a new CTP coming at the moment new elections will bring an Alderman forward who can be in favor of budget monitoring. “But in this city government, I do not know such an Alderman. Thus we have to wait patiently for the following elections and then strengthen our basis, so that we have a narrative for the coming elections. Now, this is just throwing away energy”.
Thirdly, the timing of introducing the working groups and asking for active collaboration is considered important: “When do you have to formulate and how good do you have to formulate it before they can say ‘yes’. But we know this kind of game from one another and also know how it needs to be played”.
A fourth learning point concerns the importance of time that is needed to have the right discussion in the working groups about what is needed in the neighborhood and how much money is needed for that.
To the question, whether becoming embedded in municipal structures weakens the radical potential of budget monitoring the co-founder of the CBB responds: “If you ask me, the radical still needs to start. There is nothing radical about what we have done so far. That is the moment, when we say: ‘It is just ridiculous how you spend the money’, and then the party only begins.”
In that sense the co-founder foresees another CTP in the far future: “Once, the next turning point will be that it will also be seen at the basis of the organisation. But we are far away from this”.
What was expected and confirmed by the working groups is the benefit of working in thematic groups: “What we have seen in the last course is that the thematic approach works better for a course” .
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