Hello Guardian Public Service Network readers!

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Anthony Zacharzewski

If you’ve arrived here from Anthony’s article about CityCamp on the Guardian Public Services network, you might be interested in our national site, or our other local project We Live Here.

Update: Kevin Curry has pointed out that an important paragraph linking CityCamp Brighton with its originals and wider context was cut in the Guardian edit of the piece. It read: “CityCamp, which started in the US in spring 2010, is part of a wider movement towards creative innovation in public services, including UKGovCamp, LocalGovCamp and UK CityCamps in London and Manchester as well as Brighton. They share a commitment to opennness and participation, and a trust in the uncertainty of the process.”

CityCamp Brighton 2 – on the way

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Anthony Zacharzewski

Once again we’re part of the CityCamp Brighton production team. Last year’s event was great, with almost 200 people coming together and creating ideas, discussions and 14 pitched projects.

We’re sure that this year’s, on 2-4 March, will be even better. We have a bigger prize fund thanks to our generous sponsors, and will be giving out more small grants so the CityCamp goodness gets right out into the city.

Based on feedback from last year, we’re hosting a special lead-up event for community and voluntary groups, to explain what CityCamp is, how it works and how they can get the best out of it for their organisations. That event is on 9 February in central Brighton and free tickets are already available. Tickets for the main event will be available from 10 February – but those at the induction event will get first chance at them.

Finally, we’re looking for help – both practical and financial – to make the event as great as it can be. If you want to help with getting the word out or practical arrangements on the day, or if you or your company want to sponsor a session to connect with our city’s interested and engaged innovators, get in touch.

Brighton Budget events: the write-up

Posted on December 1, 2011 by The Demsoc Team

We’ve now completed the report on the three council budget discussion events we held in mid-November. You can download a PDF of the report here. Thanks to everyone who took part.

Brighton budget events: the first two

Posted on November 13, 2011 by Anthony Zacharzewski

Thanks to those who came to the budget discussion events we held in Hangleton and Patcham yesterday. There’s one more to come, tomorrow evening in Brighton, with a few places still left.

We were busy facilitating, so we weren’t able to live-blog or tweet the events, unfortunately. There was a lot of buzz and conversation, as well as plenty of ideas on priorities for council spending. It was clear that people weren’t that comfortable expressing preferences that they thought would lead to cuts – not because they thought budgets were the council’s job, but because they knew that people’s lives and livelihoods were at stake, and it was a heavy responsibility. There was a lot of support for spending on services delivered directly to people (such as social care and residential care), a preference for community action over council action (as long as it was properly funded and supported), and a desire to find out more and understand more about how services were actually being delivered

We’ll be writing up a full report on the events in the next week or two.

Brighton budget exercises: the budget sheets

Posted on November 12, 2011 by The Demsoc Team

We’re hosting three budget discussion events, in Hangleton (this morning, but full), Patcham (this afternoon) and central Brighton (Monday evening), where participants will hear about where the council spends its money now, have the chance to ask senior council finance people questions about how services are delivered, and then discuss and make recommendations on where the council spends its money.

We’ll be taking the results of the event back to the council’s senior officers and politicians who commissioned the event, but we’ve also been sharing the materials here in the last few days. We’ve already put up an overall budget summary – here are the sheets that individual discussion tables will be getting to show the fuller breakdown of council services and their per person (per city resident) annual budget.

Brighton Budget exercise: Combined Budget Sheets

Brighton budget events: what’s going to happen

Posted on November 11, 2011 by The Demsoc Team

We’re hosting three budget discussion events, in Hangleton (Saturday morning, but full), Patcham (Saturday afternoon) and central Brighton (Monday evening), where participants will hear about where the council spends its money now, have the chance to ask senior council finance people questions about how services are delivered, and then discuss and make recommendations on where the council spends its money.

We’ll be taking the results of the event back to the council’s senior officers and politicians who commissioned the event, but we’re also going to be sharing the materials, discussions and results right here over the next few days.

We’ve already posted what the council spends and what the limits on action are. Here’s the information sheet that participants will get on their tables (and if they registered by email, in advance) to explain how the session will run.

Brighton budget events: What’s Going to Happen

Brighton budget events: What can we do?

Posted on November 11, 2011 by The Demsoc Team

Following on from the description of the Council’s spending we posted yesterday, here’s a one-pager participants will have on the limits to their choices.

Brighton budget events: What can we do

Brighton budget events: what we’re dealing with

Posted on November 10, 2011 by The Demsoc Team

We’re hosting three budget discussion events, in Hangleton (Saturday morning), Patcham (Saturday afternoon) and central Brighton (Monday evening), where participants will hear about where the council spends its money now, have the chance to ask senior council finance people questions about how services are delivered, and then discuss and make recommendations on where the council spends its money.

So, as a start, here is the background information on the council’s budget that will be provided on the table (and emailed out to those participants who’ve given us their email addresses). It’s below, and you can see it and download it at Scribd. There’ll be more to come in the next couple of days, as well as tweeting from the events on our Twitter feed.

Brighton budget exercise: What Are We Dealing With

Council tax and council budgets

Posted on November 7, 2011 by The Demsoc Team

If you didn’t see it, the Politics Show SouthEast had a 10-minute piece on the Council Tax rises proposed in Brighton & Hove next year, featuring Jason Kitcat and Geoffrey Theobald – the Cabinet member for Finance and leader of the opposition. You can watch it again on iPlayer for the rest of the week over at the BBC.

If you want to have your say on how they spend that money, set your own council budget priorities and even suggest bigger cuts, you can come along to one of our Budget discussion events in Hangleton, Patcham (both on Saturday) or central Brighton (a week today, in the evening).

Have your say on Brighton & Hove’s budget at one of our events

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Anthony Zacharzewski

If you’d like to have your say on the council’s budget for next year, including where the cuts will fall, we have a few interesting events for you.

The council have asked us to support the budget consultation by organising three participatory discussions that use the information in the council’s own online tool as a basis.

We’re working in three areas, reflecting three different demographic profiles common in the city: Patcham, Hangleton and central Brighton.

The aim of the events is to provide a record of citizen discussion around the budget challenges, to give a richer picture (of a small set of participants) than can be achieved through the online tool. It is not a public meeting, with councillors speaking from the platform.

If you’re wondering whether you should come, remember that event participants get a better deal than councillors:

Like councillors, participants will have finance staff and experts on hand to answer questions.
Like councillors, participants will be able to discuss council spending decisions on the basis of good information
Like councillors, participants will be able to pass their views directly to the council leadership and senior team.
Unlike councillors, participants will get cake.

How do I sign up ?

If you want to take part, you need to be prepared to give up 2.5 hours in the morning of 12 November (Hangleton), afternoon of 12 November (Patcham), or evening of 14 November (central Brighton). If we are oversubscribed we will as far as possible balance the profile of the participants to create a demographic balance.

The participants will be divided up at random onto tables representing one of six budget blocks. The session itself (about 2 hours) will run as follows:

An introduction from the facilitators will set up the challenge for the day – to reduce the budget by a certain amount, and set priorities for extra spending or additional savings
Each group will then hear a short introduction to the area from their table expert, and the prioritisation of different services set by the Council.
The groups will then be able to question the experts on prioritisation and the effects of particular changes.
The experts will then step away from the tables and the participants will discuss how they would allocate spending priority between the different areas. The experts can then be brought back for any final questions
Each table will then present its priorities back to the group
If there are areas where more discussion is needed, or where tables have asked for spending to be rebalanced across the different directorates, those will be discussed in the whole group before the final outcome is agreed.

We will prepare a report of participants’ views and the conclusions that they reached, and will be documenting the process right here.

If you want to come along, email, ring us on Brighton 782178, or sign up using Eventbrite links in the third paragraph above.

Demsoc Brighton & Hove

A local deme of the Democratic Society