On 15 July 2005 the district administration statute for Berlin Lichtenberg was amended, providing the legal basis for planning a citizens’ budget. Since then the district assemblies have been required to enable their residents to contribute to and take part in political decision-making at communal level, and to inform them about their right to participate.

What are the aims?

The citizens’ budget is intended to take more account of district residents’ needs, to make more effective use of the funds available, to employ them in a fairer way and to make the budget planning process more transparent. The benefits anticipated for decision-makers and administrators are more lively budget discussions, unbureaucratic decisions and new suggestions for using public funds.

What is the scope of decision?

Given that the bulk of the district budget is determined in advance by statutory requirements, and that funds must be allocated accordingly, it follows that there is only limited scope for the citizens to decide things. The areas concerned are cultural facilities, promoting sport, programmes for senior citizens and young people, health promotion, management of public open space and business development.

How are decisions reached?

All residents have the opportunity of submitting proposals and assessing the proposals tabled, by means of on-line dialogue, public meetings and communication in writing.
The process begins in small-scale meetings where residents are meant to be informed and activated before the main citizens’ meetings get under way. Alongside these it is possible to submit and to assess proposals on-line.

• The editorial team, which has been elected partly on the web and partly at the citizens’ meetings, processes and checks the proposals submitted and the assessments made of these. The final version of the list of proposals is the basis for the voting procedure, it is published on-line and in printed media.
• Voting is carried out in three modes: on-line, at the final meeting and in writing – in this last case district residents selected at random receive written requests to submit their assessments. A separate list is drawn up on the basis of the resulting returns.
• Three lists of preferences emerge; these are passed to the district assembly, which takes them into account during the debates on the budget. The delegates to the assembly must report on which proposals have been accepted, and must give reasons why proposals have been rejected. The delegates are committed to implementing all ideas that conform with the budget statute in force and are politically justifiable.