Sustainable development and participatory budgeting
Sustainable Development Fund
The Sustainable Develpment Fund was developed by SSE Renewables as part of its voluntary community benefit arrangements from its onshore renewables energy developments in Scottish Borders. Find out more about how to apply.
Participatory budgeting
Participatory budgeting (PB) is a process of involving communities in deciding how to spend public money. At its core, PB is about community members shaping local services to more effectively meet local priorities.
A 60 second guide to Participatory Budgeting can be found on the PB Scotland website, along with a series of podcasts which explore how participatory budgeting has been used across Scotland. The PB charter sets out seven key features showing what a fair and high-quality PB process should look like.
The Scottish Government's Community Empowerment resources also contain information on participatory budgeting. Scottish Government also has information on the Community Choices Fund, which is £1.75m available to community organisations, aimed at increasing the numbers of people involved in making decisions about investment in their local areas.
What Works Scotland was an initiative that ran from 2014-20, to improve the way local areas in Scotland use evidence to make decisions about public service development and reform. Its operations have now been transferred to Policy Scotland at the University of Glasgow.
Several Local Authority Areas have been particularly proactive with creating public resources for their PB processes. North Ayrshire Council, in collaboration with the other Ayrshire councils, has prepared a Participatory Budgeting Toolkit which is available for public use.