United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The participatory budget being introduced in Cologne’s municipal administration is a new “service for citizen participation” (e-participation) with the goal of effectively supporting decision making processes in various fields affecting the community with the help of online media, while putting the citizen at the center. By providing an electronic platform for the participation of citizens, useful ideas of the citizens can be tapped and additional knowledge generated via the Internet. This service is to be made available in addition to the participatory budget as an instrument allowing successive relevant public processes, such as land-use plans and overall concepts, to be taken into account.

In light of this objective the following measures had to be taken to implement the participatory budget as a pilot project and to introduce the service of citizen participation:

Preparation, implementation and evaluation of a “participatory budget” catering to the concerns of the City of Cologne.
Developing a business model for the introduction and operation of a multi-client capable participation platform (usable for the participatory budget and other administrative procedures).
Launch of the multi-client capable participation platform.
Development of procedure models, process descriptions and checklists for politicians and administrators to implement electronic participation in the participatory budget and other administrative procedures.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
One important result of the project is the fact that the citizens now have the opportunity to participate in the preparation of the municipal budget: the citizens have a great need for information about the budget and there is a great willingness to participate in its preparation. The very successful participation phase of Cologne’s first participatory budget ended on Monday, November 19 at 12 a.m. sharp. For four weeks the citizens of Cologne had the opportunity to participate in planning the budget by submitting proposals, comments and assessments in the fields of “roads, lanes and public squares”, “public green spaces” and “sports”, which they did with great interest and enthusiasm. 10,231 participants registered on the Internet platform. The 4,973 submitted proposals received 9,184 comments, and a total of 52,746 assessments (votes for or against) were entered. The proposals were called up about 464,000 times and the web pages of the participation platform were visited exactly 873,476 times. About 120,000 unique visitors were counted. These figures of the Cologne participatory budget clearly surpass comparable online procedures in Germany and throughout Europe. The media also covered the project extensively. The participatory budget became the “talk of the town” during these four weeks – which was due to the city’s PR work on the one hand, but also because of the very constructive and extensive media coverage about the procedure. The great majority of the proposals were submitted online via the Internet (85%). This shows the great acceptance this medium found in the participation procedure. But the 448 written proposals and the 184 proposals received via the call-center also show that it was right to make the project accessible for citizens who don’t have access to the Internet or would rather communicate in other ways. One essential aspect for a successful participation of citizens during the entire phase of the participatory budget was to represent the complex – and for many citizens often non-transparent – material of a municipal budget in an understandable and transparent form. Aside from public hearings and the possibility of sending letters, submissions via the award-winning call center of the City of Cologne were made possible for the first time and pooled in the Internet platform to be put up for discussion. This platform is of special significance, because it can also be used to put up the respective evaluations at the conclusion of the online phase. Internet-based discussion forums allowing for time-independent communication on the basis of written messages allow citizens to participate from various locations at any time. Citizens are therefore no longer reliant on participating in a (single) event, but instead have enough time to write and make contributions to the forum discussion from their home or workplace. Furthermore, electronically supported participation procedures make it easier for newcomers to enter the discussion, since the entire course of the discussion up to that point has been documented in writing. For citizens, who otherwise have difficulties speaking in front of a great number of people or speaking up in the heat of the debate, it is also easier to participate in discussions via the Internet. The use of the Internet also holds advantages for politicians and administrators, since they don’t only benefit from the quality of the discussion and the results: the fact that Internet-based discussions are documented in writing makes it easier for them to use and process the material as an aid in the further planning process.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
In July 2004 Cologne City Council voted with a great majority to ask the municipal administration to carry out a public symposium called “Participatory Municipal Budget for Cologne”. Even before the symposium the Council asked the administration in December of 2005 “to work out a concept to adopt future budgets in the form of a participatory budget”. Upon decision of the finance committee, a steering committee (6 persons) consisting of representatives of the political parties and an advisory council (7 persons) with representatives of organizations / institutions interested in the participatory budget were established. The symposium “Participatory Budget Cologne” was carried out in September 2006 with the help of Hamburger Ramboll Management GmbH. The subsequent preparations for the Cologne participatory budget were expedited by the finance department and the e-government and online services of the City of Cologne – accompanied by monthly meetings of the advisory council. A concept for the implementation of the participatory budget 2008 was adopted by the finance committee in June of 2007. Together with the Fraunhofer Institute AIS, the online editorial department developed a basic guideline for action (study) that is helpful in making electronically supported participation of citizens a standard procedure in the municipal administration of Cologne.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The participatory budget 2008 is the pilot project for a comprehensive initiative to introduce e-participation in the City of Cologne. In this respect the city’s finance department has taken over control of the participatory budget in accordance with the concept of the project. The office for e-government and online services is responsible for the development of e-participation in the City of Cologne. On behalf of the office, the Fraunhofer Institute AIS accompanied the project in cooperation with Binary-Objects by providing conceptual and technical support. Further partners were the city’s press and information office as well as the office for information processing. In addition to the high-profile public phase (long-running ads in the print media, radio and TV as well as letters to all Cologne households) the implementation of the participation platform was of special importance. Here the interactive software had to offer more than the usual range of functions for newsgroups or discussion forums. Requirements were delineated that had to be borne in mind if one wants to implement online consultation beyond a “flood of contributions” in a targeted and result-driven way: Discussion forums or newsgroups merely offer simple threads of answers. The representation of the content and documentation of the discussion therefore consists of discussion threads grown over time that more often than not do not follow the line of arguments inherent in the discussion. Interactive software should therefore offer functions that allow incoming contributions to be enhanced with further information, for example by means of labeling the contributions, providing key words or links. Interactive software should not only allow for the enhancement of contributions, but also for the processing of the discussion documents. The moderators should be able to relocate, edit, remove, retract and re-label contributions or link them to each other in new ways, because this makes it possible for them to not only document the discussion, but to edit its documentation themselves in a targeted and result-oriented way. Furthermore, there had to be functions to control the discussion to be able to establish and adjust any number of forums and sub-forums (access rights, visibility of functions, special contribution labels, activation of modules etc.) Interactive software should also allow for the integration of further communication channels and tools: one should therefore not only be able to submit contributions via the WWW, but also via e-mail, fax or telephone. One should also make sure if the asynchronous discussion can be expanded through integrated 22 modules, like chat or survey and voting tools, for the different phases of the discussion (e.g. collection of ideas, assessment of options –see process planning,). It should also be possible to embed notes in the topics of discussion in order to annotate documents or maps, for example. Electronic discussion platforms should also support public hearings, so that local discussions can be watched by means of special user interfaces and later continued in Web forums.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
With the Council’s decision of 15.12.2005, the administration was asked to work out a concept for preparing future budgets in the form of a participatory budget. The 2008 budget will be the first to be prepared according to the guidelines of the new communal financial management. This is the first time that citizens have a chance to participate in the preparation of the budget in select fields. With regard to the “participatory budget / citizen participation”, a steering committee and an advisory council were established on the recommendation of the finance committee in its meeting of 13.02.2006. These committees took up their work on 07.09.2006 in preparation of a symposium and accompanied the development of a participatory budget. To inform and activate the citizens and get them to participate, the use of the Internet and the possibilities of online media was discussed in depth in the third meeting of the advisory council on 25.01.2007. This meeting brought a consensus to develop a specific approach for the City of Cologne. On 19.06.2007 City Council asked for the introduction of an electronic participation platform (e-participation) to “implement the participatory budget and introduce an e-participation platform”. This process was to be supported by the renowned Fraunhofer Institute IAIS. In addition to further planned access channels (letters, public hearing, call center) it is the Internet that represents the main channel for the participation procedure. The platform was used in a productive environment in October 2007. Furthermore the budget areas, for which the citizens were allowed to make proposals in the course of the first participatory budget, were determined on the basis of a preliminary representative survey of Cologne’s population: - roads, lanes and public squares - public green spaces - sports The four-week online participation phase for this year’s participatory budget was concluded on November 19, 2007. Starting with the participatory budget 2009, e-participation is to become a standard procedure of budgeting and is to be transferred to other public administrative procedures.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The main obstacle was the short time available for detailed planning and the implementation of the participatory budget. Aggravating the situation was the fact that the introduction of the participatory budget coincided with the introduction of the new communal financial management. Here one should note that the Cologne budget allows for expenditures of about 3 billion EUR.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The goal was to reach as much of the public and activate as many people as possible. This required an extensive PR campaign (marketing). Among other things, printed matter (flyers, household brochures) was developed, poster campaigns were started throughout the city, radio ads were placed and a launch event was prepared and carried out. In addition, a participation platform had to be established and serviced. Overall an amount of app. EUR 300,000 was spent. The necessary plans and work were implemented with the existing personnel (that is in addition to their regular duties), and only one employee was released from her duties to take care of the overall project coordination. All in all app. 15 people dealt with the preparation, 44 people with the immediate implementation (active phase) and 17 people with the processing and editing of the proposals within the municipal administration. The above figures on implementation also include the call center agents.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
As already explained above, the participatory budget 2008 is the pilot project for a comprehensive approach to introduce e-participation in the City of Cologne. The success of the project so far has shown that a repeat effort makes a lot of sense. But this will also make the overall subject of “e-participation” an ever greater priority for communities and institutions. The success of the participatory budget has shown that the public has a great need for information about the city’s administration and that there is a great willingness to participate in the political process.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The main challenge of the participatory budget project was to reach and activate as much of the public as possible with the resources at hand: Reaching the public - citizens – activating the target groups Generating public attention Activating many different citizens Addressing the target groups in the best possible way Designing interactive web pages to be user-friendly Guaranteeing transparent processes Generating lots of contributions – selecting good proposals Securing the future Long-term embedding in politics and administration Establishing a new culture of participation The procedure was well received by the citizens of Cologne, as is evidenced by the access rate, which so far hasn’t been reached in Germany, and maybe even in Europe, with this form of citizen participation. It turned out that the participatory budget has found its place in the city and that the citizens want to participate, as shown by their great interest and active participation. If there was any criticism at all, it was mainly constructive proposals for improving the procedure. The success is surely due to the extensive PR work in mobilizing the public and to the structure of the procedure. Access barriers were set very low, allowing citizens to submit contributions not only via the Internet, but also by mail and via the call center. In addition, the participation platform was designed to be easy and self-evident and access criteria were set quite low. Another criterion is also the promise of politicians to deal intensively with the proposals of the citizens. It soon turned out that the discussion took place on a very constructive level concerning everyday problems. The subject areas drawing the most attention, such as traffic lights, street lighting, bicycle lanes and networks, a bike-friendly city, dogs, dog droppings, dogging, teenagers and children, garbage, cleanliness, public pools, safety, playgrounds, road repair, traffic and traffic safety, in other words subjects that everyone encounters every day, were evidence of this. These subjects were a recurrent theme throughout the entire procedure, and it turned out that 4 weeks of active participation is sufficient. It also turned out that the kind and scope of the Internet service was very well received by the citizens. An attempt was made to promptly clear up questions and react to suggestions, and the users were not given much “rein”. Whenever discussions were on the verge of getting out of hand or there were problems with the behavior of some, a reaction followed immediately. This was helpful in preventing discussions from running out of control and politically incorrect opinions being disseminated.


Institution Name:		Stadt Köln
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Manfred Ropertz
Title:		Department Manager
Telephone/ Fax:		0049221-221-25080
Institution's / Project's Website:		0049221-221-23902
E-mail:		manfred.ropertz@stadt-koeln.de
Address:		Laurenzplatz 1-3
Postal Code:		50667
City:		Köln
State/Province:
Country:		Germany

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information