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Of all the announcements made since the start of Gordon Brown's premiership, the commitment to allow communities a meaningful say in how local budgets are allocated can be seen as a real statement of intent. Among the plans announced are minister Hazel Blears' ballots to decide how, and in which areas resources should be distributed. So, how do examples of this approach stack up? Local government already consults far more more frequently on its spending than virtually any part of the public sector. Its experiences in binding consultation have been somewhat mixed, with some alarming low spending preferences of the minority who participate deterring many. Academic evaluation of existing initiatives – while broadly positive – has questioned whether they do really allow adequate representation from all sectors of the community. Despite moves being made to ensure coverage from all geographic areas in a locality, there are huge challenges around marketing and communicating the fact that real choices are available. If this doesn't work, low turn-outs and capture of these mechanisms by ‘busybodies' will undermine their legitimacy. One of the findings of the policy review we undertook for the Cabinet Office earlier this year was a reaction against the usual suspects dominating processes – but also resignation that everyone else was too busy to get involved. But, avoiding having only the angry, elderly or activists participating is a challenge. And authorities will need to think hard about how inclusive public meetings can be for certain people – those whose first language isn't English, with hearing impairments, or who are dyslexic, for example. Ipsos MORI's experience of conducting deliberative events on priorities for local spending proves that, when provided with adequate information, people are easily capable of making complex trade-offs between different services. Furthermore, they can distinguish between short, medium, and long-term priorities for their neighbourhood – even if they often end up preferring to leave it to their councillors once they see the complexity. It is not that they cannot make decisions – they are just glad someone else has to. Depending on the scale of the implications, considerable effort will need to be put into cognitive testing of materials. Making sure people understand the implications of their choices, and are fairly briefed about them is key. When consulting over council tax levels, the classic move was to offer people three alternatives, but exclude zero – which, as some existing referenda show, has a strange magnetism all of its own. So, for example, offer people a 4%, 6% or 8% rise, plus accompanying explanation, and low and behold, 6% will be chosen most often. Offer 1%, 3% or 5% if you want them to choose 3%. The need to set out the actual level of expenditure and what it provides is vital. Without this, for example, heritage, arts and library services tend to lose out massively. Only when people see the actual size of the schools budget, relative to that spent on the public realm, do their views change. Language also matters. In our work in Kingston, we found people more willing to support spending on people with ‘mental handicaps' than ‘learning difficulties' – because they understood different things by the two descriptions. Of course, big ticket services are excluded from the pilots, but the same principles apply. And above all, local government is going to really have to invest in marketing these ballots, and their results to residents. Although most of the mechanisms outlined by Ms Blears, such as public meetings, are hardly new, the perennial problem of those with the loudest voices or with an axe to grind being most prominent, will not just go away. If greater public involvement is to mean anything in practice, central government cannot be too prescriptive in what it wants from these debates. The experience of Porto Alegre in Brazil, where participatory budgeting has been in operation for years, and by all accounts, is enjoying considerable success, is often cited as a positive example of what can happen. The structures which have evolved show an impressive record in maintaining inclusion, including various local and regional bodies across neighbourhoods, in the run-up to the annual city-wide deliberative event where the final decisions are made. One of the most impressive of Porto Alegre's achievements has been to encourage individual residents to adopt a more holistic overview and appreciation of others' needs. Negotiations between local forums has led to more affluent neighbourhoods setting aside some of their initial preferences in favour of greater funding for poorer localities. But, one suspects that in more comfortable and cynical Britain, huge efforts to engage more than a small minority will be needed. This doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do – it just means everyone involved needs to be clear about the challenge of connecting large numbers of residents in a local debate. Ben Page is chairman and Andy Byrom is associate director, public affairs, at Ipsos MORI Social Research

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WHITEHALL

Will the majority play the game?

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