Think you could do better?
Participative budget planned by Valencia government
RESIDENTS of the Valencia region will be able to decide how €125 million of next year’s budget is spent.
This will be the first participative budget scheme offered by the regional government, noted treasury councillor Rosa Pérez Garijo.
Residents will be able to suggest projects which fall within the purview of the regional government’s powers and those which are considered viable will progress to the voting stage. The funding will be allocated from the sections of the budget for running costs, current transfers, and investments.
Sra Garijo said that increasing public participation is a priority so that ‘citizens can feel part of this government and make decisions about the public budget’.
The pilot proposal will help
the regional government to ‘connect’ with collective debates in society, she added. It
will also enable them to be in ‘permanent contact with associations and visualise the problems and challenges faced by the Valencia region as a whole’.
The regional treasury’s technology department (DGTIC) will design ‘the tools required for effective public participation’. The requirements, terms and procedure of the initiative will be revealed ‘soon’, she said, and it will take place via the new website GVAParticipa.
The process will include phases for public information, presentation of proposals, checking their legal and financial viability, measuring public support, evaluation, publication of costs, a final vote, and publication of the results.
Sra Garijo added that new forms of socialising brought by technologies and particularly social networks have forced them to adopt ‘a new logic’ and find ‘a new model of management that it suitable for an advanced society’.