How do you use Participatory Budgeting (PB) to inspire co-productive ways of working? And how do you engage in rural or urban locations and create commitment within a diverse and changing population? Join and be part of a debate on PB and co-production.

Taking place during the Scottish PB Festival, this 1 hour webinar will exchange experiences of the practical challenges to, and the opportunities from strengthening the local governance of public bodies through participatory budgeting (PB).

What?
Using a question and answer format we will explore the limits to PB:

Can we use PB strategically to address wider social issues, such as isolation – and what are the challenges?
How to introduce PB when there is no ‘community’ to pick up the initiative, and with what consequences?
What can you do to grow a more deliberative and democratic PB beyond just grant-making?

For who - You?
This webinar is aimed at community planning and public engagement officers, including those interested in rural sustainability. It will appeal to a wider audience too, including community councillors, elected members, environmental and PB champions of all kinds. In fact anyone interested in finding out more about PB and its links to co-production.

Value for you
Participants will be able to ask questions during the webinar, and get feedback from the panel. You will hear about personal experiences of setting up PB processes and all the mistakes we made. And some things that worked. Join the webinar and

Benefit from awareness of the work of others operating in different contexts
Identify opportunities to foster future learning exchanges, either via webinars or meeting face to face, perhaps even during Scottish Co-Production week, in mid November
Hear about and feed ideas into the wider discussion on a PB charter for Scotland – or maybe for Denmark
Explore how PB and co-production can deliver meaningful community empowerment.

Hosts:

Morten Ronnenberg, Centre for Good Governance, Denmark: Morten founded the Centre for Good Governance with colleagues based in Denmark to facilitate co-productive work and enable council’s to modernise their governance structures. He has led many learning exchanges between Scotland and Denmark, and stimulated interest in the role of PB in developing new forms of community led governance.
Jez Hall, PB Partners, UK. Through PB Partners, a not for profit consultancy, Jez has been closely involved with the development of PB for over 15 years, and has been advising many local councils and public bodies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and internationally on how to do better citizen engagement. He brings huge experience of community empowerment approaches including PB, citizen juries and community led design.

Participants in the webinar will include:

Søren Noes: Chair of the Citizen Action Group of Small Danish Islands. Søren lives on the island of Hjarnø and active in delivering PB in Hedensted municipality. Hedensted is a rural municipality in south east Denmark of around 50,000 residents, and includes rural areas and a long coastline. Søren has visited Scotland to learn about PB and passionate community empowerment and coproduction.
Lorraine McKenzie: A Community Engagement Officer for South Ayrshire Council since 2007 Lorraine has been involved working with communities across South Ayrshire on a number of projects including developing community facilities in both rural and urban areas. She's been involved in PB in South Ayrshire since its inception in 2015 and a Scottish PB Champion.

This webinar will use ZOOM technology. To join you will need a PC or smartphone to view the webinar, or there are free numbers available from landline or mobile phones, using which you can dial in for audio only. You don't need to create a login, just use the link we will send you. Questions from participants will be gathered through the chat function, for which a PC, laptop or smartphone will be required.

Full instructions for joining will be emailed to those booking their free place.

Laying the foundations... Co-production through PB in Denmark and Scotland