Impact

One important result of the project is the fact that the citizens now have the opportunity to participate in the preparation of the municipal budget. 

The very successful participation phase of Cologne’s first participatory budget ended on Monday, November 19 at 12 a.m. sharp. For four weeks the citizens of Cologne had the opportunity to participate in planning the budget by submitting proposals, comments and assessments in the fields of “roads, lanes and public squares”, “public green spaces” and “sports”, which they did with great interest and enthusiasm.

The large number of registered participants (10,231), submitted proposals (4,973), received comments (9,184) and assessments (52,746) clearly surpass comparable online procedures in Germany and throughout Europe. The media also covered the project extensively. The participatory budget became the “talk of the town” during these four weeks – which was due to the city’s PR work on the one hand, but also because of the very constructive and extensive media coverage about the procedure.

One essential aspect for a successful participation of citizens during the entire phase of the participatory budget was to represent the complex – and for many citizens often non-transparent – material of a municipal budget in an understandable and transparent form.

Aside from public hearings and the possibility of sending letters, submissions via the award-winning call center of the City of Cologne were made possible for the first time and pooled in the Internet platform to be put up for discussion. Though the great majority of the proposals - 85% - were submitted online via the Internet. This platform is of special significance, because it can also be used to put up the respective evaluations at the conclusion of the online phase.

Internet-based discussion forums allowing for time-independent communication on the basis of written messages allow citizens to participate from various locations at any time. Citizens are therefore no longer reliant on participating in a (single) event, but instead have enough time to write and make contributions to the forum discussion from their home or workplace.

Furthermore, electronically supported participation procedures make it easier for newcomers to enter the discussion, since the entire course of the discussion up to that point has been documented in writing. For citizens, who otherwise have difficulties speaking in front of a great number of people or speaking up in the heat of the debate, it is also easier to participate in discussions via the Internet.

The use of the Internet also holds advantages for politicians and administrators, since they don’t only benefit from the quality of the discussion and the results: the fact that Internet-based discussions are documented in writing makes it easier for them to use and process the material as an aid in the further planning process.

Track record of sharing

The Cologne citizens' budget has aroused lively interest at both national and international level on the subject of citizens' budgets and e-participation in general.

In order to cater for this interest and to enable other authorities, national organisations and other interested parties to become involved, the city of Cologne has various ways of communicating and presenting the project.

Some examples are its participation in a variety of conferences serving the transfer of know-how, such as the eGovernment Academy which is supported by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Inwent citizens' budget network, presentations at congresses in Leipzig and Paris, involvement in the eGovernment Award NRW and presentations at trade fairs, e.g. Cebit as part of the NRW joint stand.

Furthermore, during the last few months delegations from different German cities and international delegations, from Africa and Sweden for example, have taken the opportunity to find out about the citizens' budget at first hand.

An example of a powerpoint presentation used for this cases is added as an additional document.

There are plans in the future to extend the system for further use in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute, e.g. via the KDN or the German Association of Cities.

Lessons learnt

The main challenge of the participatory budget project was to reach and activate as much of the public as possible with the resources at hand:
Reaching the public - citizens - activating the target groups
- Generating public attention
- Activating many different citizens
- Addressing the target groups in the best possible way
- Designing interactive web pages to be user-friendly
- Guaranteeing transparent processes
- Generating lots of contributions - selecting good proposals
- Securing the future
- Long-term embedding in politics and administration
- Establishing a new culture of participation

The success is surely due to the extensive PR work in mobilizing the public and to the structure of the procedure. Access barriers were set very low, allowing citizens to submit contributions not only via the Internet, but also by mail and via the call center. In addition, the participation platform was designed to be easy and self-evident and access criteria were set quite low. Another criterion is also the promise of politicians to deal intensively with the proposals of the citizens.

It soon turned out that the discussion took place on a very constructive level concerning everyday problems. The subject areas drawing the most attention, such as traffic lights, street lighting, bicycle lanes and networks, a bike-friendly city, dogs, dog droppings, dogging, teenagers and children, garbage, cleanliness, public pools, safety, playgrounds, road repair, traffic and traffic safety, in other words subjects that everyone encounters every day, were evidence of this. These subjects were a recurrent theme throughout the entire procedure, and it turned out that 4 weeks of active participation had been sufficient.

Proposals that were only submitted towards the end had no chance of gaining sufficient votes to make it onto the list of best ideas.

The next participatory budgeting, scheduled to take place in November/December 2009, will run for five weeks, divided into two parts. During the first three weeks, citizens will be able to submit proposals, comment and vote, for the following two weeks the platform will be closed for new proposals, but will still be opened for comments and votes.

This should ensure that proposals only submitted towards the end still have enough time to be ranked high if they are considered sufficiently good.

It also turned out that the kind and scope of the Internet service was very well received by the citizens. An attempt was made to promptly clear up questions and react to suggestions, and the users were not given much "rein". Whenever discussions were on the verge of getting out of hand or there were problems with the behavior of some, a reaction followed immediately. This was helpful in preventing discussions from running out of control and politically incorrect opinions being disseminated.