Bold project wins for Connecting Communities
The City was the first WA metropolitan council give its community input into the development of the entire operating budget.
The City of Bayswater has been recognised at the LG Honour Awards for their Participatory Budgeting project. The City was the first WA metropolitan council to give its community input into the development of its entire operating budget.
The Honour Awards celebrate projects that demonstrate outstanding contributions to the local government industry; and the City was recognised in the new category of Connecting Communities, which acknowledges excellence in community consultation initiatives.
Mayor Dan Bull said he is proud to receive an accolade for a project that placed such high value on community input.
"As a Council, we were significantly invested in this project. We set out wanting to better understand community priorities in terms of the services we deliver, and that is exactly what we achieved.
The in-depth consultative process included drop in sessions at local libraries and shopping centres, an online budget allocator tool, and a deliberative community panel.
“The community panel spent three days deliberating over the City’s operating budget. Managers from across the organisation came to panel session to explain the services they delivered on behalf of the community.
“The City was then able to align the 2019/20 Budget with many of the panel’s recommendations, and adopt a budget that reflected the services valued by the community."
Participatory Budgeting Community Panel 
“I am incredibly impressed with the passion and commitment of the community panel. It was a big job for them, and one that carried significant responsibility. They gave up their time to make sure this year’s Budget was aligned with the services the community values.
"This level of community engagement is bold and the City is the first metropolitan council to challenge the status quo.
"It's projects like these that help us build stronger communities", said Mayor Bull.
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The Participatory Budgeting Community Panel came together over three in-depth workshops to deliberate on the City's 2019/20 Operating Budget.
The panel handed their final recommendation to Council on Saturday 16 March 2019.