East Renfrewshire lies to the south of Glasgow. There are seven data zones in East Renfrewshire that are classed as being within the 20% most deprived in Scotland. These are located within Barrhead and Auchenback. Given the significant disparity between the least and most disadvantaged communities, reducing inequalities arising from socio-economic disadvantage is a key local authority and Community Learning and Development (CLD) partnership priority.

The improvement issue

Following the pandemic, Humanitarian research undertaken by the council, highlighted the need to support communities to recover, particularly through groups and activities that target more vulnerable and marginalised residents. The council recognised that one of the ways they could tackle this need was to build on and extend their participatory budgeting (PB).

Senior leaders recognised that there was more to do to engage community members who may be directly affected by decisions on how financial resources is spent. They wanted to identify ways in which community members could have an active role in designing, delivering and embedding community led grant making processes, such as PB.

Grant making PB is well established within locality planning areas of East Renfrewshire. The PB process within the local authority is led by Linking Communities. They are a community-led umbrella organisation and the conduit for grant making PB in East Renfrewshire. The council wanted to build on the success of community-led PB already established. Together with Linking Communities, they used learning from the research and SIMD data zones to extend PB to 3 new geographical areas. The council wanted to replicate this model as a way of distributing funding for grass roots activity to provide support to communities and those residents most in need. Identified priority groups included; children and young people, older people, those with disabilities and long-term conditions, single households and those with language barriers.

What East Renfrewshire Council did

Grant making PB has been delivered in areas of East Renfrewshire since 2018. The council have worked in partnership with Linking Communities to develop, deliver and expand opportunities for local community groups to access funding through PB. The CLD Team worked collaboratively with Linking Communities to establish grant making PB in new targeted areas. Linking Communities volunteers were supported to undertake a wide programme of training to further embed their knowledge and understanding of PB. This included exploring the origins and underlying principles of PB, including the PB charter, planning and managing PB events, digital approaches to PB and evaluating the impact PB has on local communities. Linking Communities also participated in wider community development training such as national standards in community engagement to ensure their practice is needs led and their governance procedures were robust.

Linking Communities and the council co-produced and implemented a local authority wide approach to grant making PB. This enabled the volunteers to take responsibility to lead the PB process and helped them to support change in their communities. This has helped Linking Communities ensure that local neighbourhoods were involved in all stages of the PB process, including how budgets were allocated. This has helped to strengthen existing relationships at both strategic and operational levels. This involved:

• sharing of data from our Humanitarian Research to inform decision making
• open and transparent discussions around the allocation of funding to each area
• redefining the geographical communities to ensure the targeting of those most in need; and
• helping local community members to become involved in the design, planning and evaluation process and influence how PB approaches how work in practice.

Linking Communities used their skills, experience, knowledge and relationships within local areas to design processes which reflect the individual needs of each community. They continued to have ongoing dialogue with local groups to ensure PB processes were easy and attractive for people to get involved. Volunteers provide support to groups to remove barriers to participation, ensuring those who wish to get involved can. As a result, PB is aligned with local priorities and more residents have the opportunity to become involved in community organisations and activities. PB approaches were expanded to include youth led PB, which was introduced in 2021 as part of East Renfrewshire Youth Voice. Young people were instrumental in designing the youth lead PB processes and delivered PB projects across the authority and identified the themes they would focus on. In 2022-2023, young people supported PB projects focused on improving mental health and wellbeing, safe spaces and the environment. In 2023-2024, they supported PB projects which helped improve personal development, mental health and wellbeing, community safety, accessibility and the environment.

What the sustained impact has been

The council continues to value and invest in grant making PB. In 2023 - 2024, the council allocated a further £150,000. As a result, grant making PB is now delivered in all 5 wards of East Renfrewshire including Barrhead, Neilston, Thornliebank, Busby, Eaglesham and Newton Mearns Village. In addition, the council has funded a Community Worker post to provide ongoing capacity building support to assist the development of community-led approaches within the new areas. The council has also invested an additional £20,000 to support food growing PB across East Renfrewshire. This is helping support groups to start food growing initiatives or expand existing enterprises, in line with the council’s Food Growing Strategy.

From 2018 - 2024, the council has invested £579,500 in grant making PB through Linking Communities. As a result, 211 grants have been awarded to a range of voluntary and community groups, decided upon by local communities.

As a result of the council’s commitment to PB, ongoing dialogue, capacity building support and continued collaborative working, 4 new Steering Groups have been established. As a result, PB process have now been extended to all 5 wards in East Renfrewshire. In 2023-2024, the CLD service and Linking Communities supported 6 community voting events and 2 online votes. As a result, engagement in community-led PB activity has more than doubled across East Renfrewshire.

Feedback and evaluation of grant making PB processes in East Renfrewshire demonstrates that it is:

• fair and transparent
• valued in local communities
• supporting the start-up of small groups
• providing networking opportunities
• sharing knowledge and skills
• reducing social isolation and having a positive impact on mental health
• strengthening the credibility of grassroots community organisations; and
• creating enthusiasm and energy in communities.

Grant making PB has expanded across many demographics in East Renfrewshire with funding allocated to a wider range of groups who provide:

• recreation, sports and fitness activities
• activities for children and young people
• activities for people with additional support needs
• arts and drama activities
• activities for older people
• health and welbeing activities; and
• early years activities.

Linking Communities are now supported ‘at arm’s length’ by the CLD team. The further investment from the council demonstrates confidence in Linking Communities ability to deliver successful grant making PB which creates positive and sustained impacts on our local communities.

The partnership between Linking Communities and CLD to support other areas in their PB journey is creating a way for people who live and work in communities to work together to ensure that public money is used to achieve improved outcomes for local residents. This is leading to greater community-led decision making that reflects local priorities and further strengthens relationships between residents, communities and the local authority.

Since its development in 2018, PB events continue to engage an increasing number of residents in PB activity. As a result, more than 5,700 residents have influenced how public funds are distributed in their communities. In total, over 37,000 votes have been cast and 319 local community and voluntary groups have received their share of £579,500 of funding to deliver services that are improving the lives of local residents.

The following table demonstrates voter trends over time from 2018-2024. There is a dip in 2022 as groups built back from the pandemic.