| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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The Budget School offers five courses: a basic course, a local instructor training course, a public-private sector communication promotion course, an on the job training course for public officials, and a budget committee course. The "local instructor training course" is helping spread PB among the district population.
Graduates of Budget School have established the Seodaemun-gu PB Group to expand their PB experiences to talent donation.
The Gu office holds open discussions between the public and private sectors every year before finalizing next year's budget. Meetings are organized and run by residents. Various resident organizations such as Resident Congress and Resident PB Committee, district council, and NGOs take part in completely open forums. The previous year’s budget implementation is reviewed and evaluated at the meetings. Next year’s budget is discussed for finalization.
The Gu office lets its officials and residents exchange budgeting opinions through lectures held by invited outside experts. Overall, participants' sincerity in the PB discussions is so impressive, even overseas delegations benchmarking the district’s PB arrangements said they were moved by such enthusiasm.
The Seodaemun-gu participatory budgeting meetings are held at two levels: dong (smallest administrative unit in Korea: Seodaemun-gu has 14 dongs) and gu (district). The dong meetings are held in two stages. The gu meeting is held once. Residents actively participate in prep gatherings to prepare themselves better for the meetings.
1) First Meeting at the Dong-level
The first dong meeting is designed to collect residents’ opinions on the relevant budgets and is attended by 70 ~ 200 residents. It is organized and run by graduates of the district’s PB School. Key to the success of the meeting is participants expressing their opinions freely.
2) Second Meeting at the Dong- level
The Gu office offers feedback on the results of the first dong-level meeting. Residents then discuss the budgetary priorities. Following enough discussions, participants finally vote.
3) PB Committee
The PB Committee of Seodaemun-gu consists of 40 ~ 100 residents who have finished all courses offered by PB School. The committee reviews the 2nd meetings decisions. Within one percent of the total district budget, the committee makes recommendations on various proposed projects. The decision gets reflected on the district’s budget proposal and is submitted to the district council unless legal issues are involved.
Residents propose new projects on the website of the Gu office (http://www.sdm.go.kr/index.do). The district also encourages residents’ participation on its blog and SNS media. The Seodaemun-gu PB Meeting runs its own website (http://cafe.daum.net/sdmjys) to collect residents’ opinions.
The public officials of Seodaemun-gu continuously support all aforesaid processes. They try to ensure that residents voluntarily participate in various activities. Projects chosen through PB processes are further discussed at meetings between public officials and residents concerned with the project proposals.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The current mayor of Seodaemun-gu has played a key role in ensuring the success of the participatory budgeting processes in the district. To prevent the processes from becoming superficial, he attends all meetings related to participatory budgeting, though he has never participated in discussions at the meetings. He sits in on the meetings, encouraging public officials and resident’s participation.
Through the voluntary activities of the PB Group consisting of graduates of the Budget School, PB in the district began to be implemented fully. Residents at the PB Committee work hard to select projects with the biggest public interests. Residents are the key participants and stakeholders of the PB system in the district.
The relevant departments of Seodaemun-gu have worked hard to come up with all the details of the projects proposed by residents. They then take responsibility for the successful implementation of the projects. Participatory budgeting in Seodaemun could not have succeeded without their in-depth feedback on the various projects concerned.
However initially, there were officials who were suspicious of PB for fear of increasing workloads. Nonetheless, due to the district Mayor’s strong commitment and the increasing ability of residents to promote the initiative, their positions began to be positive. Now they are bridging the communication between the residents and the Gu office very successfully.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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1) Civil Society: the commissioned operation of the Budget School
The Gu office ran the Budget School directly to enhance residents’ ability to review the district’s policymaking decisions. Nonetheless, the education run by the public sector ended up conveying the positions of the government unilaterally. Therefore, Seodaemun-gu decided to commission the operation of the school to a third party. "Center for Good Budget", a nonprofit organization devoted to the streamlining of budget-related business in public offices, was selected in 2011 to operate the PB system in its first year. Through this arrangement, the Gu office secured the neutrality of the education programs. The civic organization has done a great deal to boost residents’ capability to run PB in the district effectively.
2) Graduates of the Budget School: Voluntary donation of talent
Graduates of the Budget School have held orientations on PB for the public or assumed the role of moderators at the "dong" PB meeting as part of their talent donation. Such devotion of the graduates helped change the perspectives of public officials who were pessimistic about the prospects of PB in the district. The graduates have formed an organization on their own. They exchange opinions and participate in one another’s "dong" meetings to offer feedback. Through such contributions from the residents, the PB system stabilized earlier than expected.
3) Public Officials: Continuous communication with residents
To run the participatory budgeting system effectively, it is crucial for the public officials in charge of budgets to maintain an open-minded and energetic attitude to listen to residents. Residents and public officials have developed PB in the district through a continuous exchange of opinions. As a result, the district’s 1% PB system runs as effectively as possible.
The operation of the PB system in the district does not require additional funds thanks to the volunteers’ talent donation. For the operation of the Budget School, however, the Gu office allocates around five million won a year. It spends another five million won a year on the operation of the PB Committee.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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Self-rule by local governments must not be centered on the government but on citizens. Note, previously Korea lacked a system for ensuring residents’ participation in the governments’ policymaking decisions even though the public was eager to participate in governance.
However, under these circumstances, through the operation of the PB system that enables anybody to participate in the budgeting processes, the Gu office meets the residents’ desire to participate. For instance, expanding sidewalks alongside school fences, installing drinking fountains, and building walking paths that are disabled-friendly are all the results of the residents’ active participation in the PB processes.
Residents actively participate further when they can express their opinions and their requests are reflected on policies. Through such participation, their satisfaction level increases, which in turn motivates them to participate even more. It is a virtuous cycle. Residents make various proposals at the meetings for the 1% Participatory Budgeting, which results in actual benefits to the residents and increases their satisfaction with the operation of the local government. Residents’ proposals include: installation of water fountains at the starting points of hiking courses as proposed by amateur hikers; rehabilitation programs for severely disabled people as proposed by a parent of a handicapped person, and; building of local children’s centers as proposed by low-income parents worrying about their children being left unattended after school.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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At the end of each year, the Resident Congress and the PB Committee hold meetings to evaluate their activities during the year and review successes, failures, and regrets. The results are presented to residents at the Public-Private Open Discussion held every February or March.
Every year, members of the Resident Congress, PB Committee, officials of Seodaemun-gu office, district councilors, city councilors representing the district, residents, and civil society get together to evaluate the previous year’s achievements and discuss future plans.
The Gu office maintains a Project Execution Management Card for each PB project and discloses its contents quarterly. To enable the Gu office to get feedback on the progress, the Residents’ District Administration Evaluation Group carries out a separate evaluation. The Gu office pays keen attention to the results to ensure that the PB system runs smoothly in the district.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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Low financial self-sufficiency and decreasing expendable revenues have always been the worry of local governments in Korea. Many officials believed that it was not feasible for a local government to introduce PB that would further reduce expendable revenues due to increased financial burdens.
Although this was the case in the example of Porto Alegre, Seodaemun-gu decided that it was all the more important for residents to participate in the budgeting processes and set the priorities of projects when revenues were not enough to cover expenditures.
In other local governments that have adopted PB, the system is not run efficiently. Only a limited number of organizations participate. Consequently, PB has caused wastage of administrative power and money. To avoid repeating the same mistake in the district, Seodaemun-gu runs the Budget School and boosts residents’ competence in reviewing budgets. Through public-private governance, it ensures that the Gu office and residents constantly communicate with each other.
Legally, the district council is entitled to review and approve the district budget. Therefore, councilors may feel pressure in reviewing a budget proposal containing projects proposed by residents or projects whose priorities are determined by them. Councilors may oppose the introduction of PB on grounds that it could infringe on their rights to review and approve the district budget. To eliminate such worries, the Gu office continued to talk with councilors and convinced them of the system’s numerous merits.
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