Public budgets are more than technical spreadsheets. They are political and moral documents. They show who we value, what we value, and how we share resources. Yet in most countries, the public’s role is still limited to comment boxes or annual town halls that change little.
Today’s context demands we take public engagement far more seriously. Democracy is under pressure and public trust is at an all-time low. At the same time, inequality is rising, expenditure needs are growing and revenues falling. Extremely tough trade-offs demand better choices and execution. Public engagement is how we achieve both.
What meaningful engagement delivers
When the public understands the budget and can engage with the process meaningfully, it becomes a strategic capability that makes budgeting more legitimate, realistic, and effective.
First, choices improve. The public and civil society have ground-level knowledge that top-down processes routinely miss. They know the relative importance of tertiary hospitals versus rural clinics, or school feeding versus pensions. These insights improve allocative decisions before money is spent.
Second, fairness is visible. Budgets are about distribution. Engagement surfaces the distributional impacts of proposals — who gains, who pays, and who is left out. This allows governments to address inequities openly, instead of relying on backroom deals with powerful lobbies.
Third, delivery gets stronger. When the public helps to set priorities, they are also incentivized to monitor programs. This pressure and information sharpens execution. It reduces underspending. And it improves quality.
Finally, engagement builds trust. When fiscal space is tight, trust is vital. You do not build trust by promising perfection. You build it by showing your work, making trade-offs explicit, inviting challenge, and demonstrating how public input changes outcomes. We can no longer afford to exclude the public from public budgeting.
Overcoming common concerns
Not everyone is in favor of public participation. Four common concerns are often raised, but they can all be managed through careful design.
The first concern is: “We don't have time.” I would argue that the executive already spends significant time explaining budget decisions after the fact. Moving some of that energy upstream saves time later, resulting in fewer surprises and less backlash.
The second is that the process will be captured by special interests. Capture thrives in the dark, not in the light. Well-designed engagement reduces the space for quiet, informal lobbying by putting all proposals and their reasons on the public record.
Third, many raise the concern that inclusive budgeting will raise expectations we cannot meet. On the contrary, engagement allows expectations to be managed early by being specific about the scope and explaining decisions. The public can hope for a “yes” but accept a “no” when the trade-offs are clear and the process is serious.
Finally, some argue that public participation undermines the role of Parliament. In fact, it can complement and strengthen parliamentary scrutiny, especially when analytical capacity in Parliament is limited.
Our progress is patchy
So, how much progress are we making? The short answer is that we are making progress, but it is very patchy.
On the positive side, standard-setters like the OECD, the IMF, and the World Bank all endorse public engagement. The principles and practices to guide engagement also exist – See for example those proposed by the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency. Furthermore, the preconditions for participation are stronger than ever. Budget transparency has increased dramatically, and the analytical capacity of civil society and Independent Fiscal Institutions has grown in countries all over the world.
The problem is that formal engagement opportunities lag far behind. According to the latest Open Budget Survey, the average score for public participation in the 22 OECD countries covered is just 25 out of 100. Only three OECD countries score above 50/100: South Korea (65), New Zealand (55), and United Kingdom (54).
Despite the low OECD average, impressive bright spots are developing. Ireland’s National Economic Dialogue is a strong forum for setting the scene ahead of the annual budget, while bringing everyone together. Canada runs an annual pre-budget consultation and, crucially, publishes a “what we heard” summary showing how input was treated. Scotland produces an “Equality and Fairer Scotland” budget statement, prompting explicit discussion on the impacts on different groups. In a local example from the Netherlands, the municipality of Zeist faced a €6.2 million shortfall. By engaging 200 citizens, they not only closed the gap but identified savings of €7.6 million, enough to create additional fiscal space.
Where Do We Go Next? Designing for Influence
The building blocks for participation exist, sometimes in impressive form. But, they are not yet consistently connected – across stages of the cycle, across institutions, and levels of government.
The next level of public engagement must recognize two factors.
First, the public is not just looking for a microphone; they want to be heard and respected as active participants in a democracy. They want influence to shape policy, weigh in on trade-offs, and ensure implementation. Our current principles and practices respond increasingly well to the public’s need to be included, but much less well on the public’s desire to have real influence.
Second, budgeting is no longer the purview of a few actors in the executive branch. There are many new actors, inside and outside government, and the relationships between these actors are more developed. The budget process now resembles an “ecosystem” made up of many interdependent actors.
How do we design public engagement for influence in complex systems? A few ideas to start the conversation:
We must design participation for influence, not just inclusion. We should ask where in the ecosystem participation can add the most value to choices, ensure follow through, and who needs to act together to make that happen?
We must also see the public as a civic ecosystem. Individuals can engage alone, but they most often engage through communities and organizations – housing associations, think tanks, trade unions, social movements, faith networks, issue advocacy groups – each with different roles, skills and tactics. We should map different channels to different contributions—deliberation for values advocates, open data for analysts, and co-design for implementers.
Governments must compete for civic attention. The budget process offers many entry points throughout the year. Civil society can also create touchpoints – organizing, media work, informal engagement with officials and – when necessary – protest. Governments must offer quality engagement. Credible, well-timed, formal avenues will "crowd in" actors. Weak or token avenues will push civil society towards informal or confrontational routes. Map the opportunities and make the formal ones worth choosing.
We must measure outcomes, not inputs. Count what matters. Do not just count meetings held or people consulted. Count decisions altered, provisions strengthened, and delivery milestones met. When people see results, they keep showing up – and so do officials. That’s how participation moves from rituals to results.
Finally, we must recognize the importance of relationships, not just institutions. This requires thinking about what combinations of actors, at what moments will add the most value to government decisions. By strengthening these relationships, participation becomes a public asset that improves decisions, delivery, and trust.
Our budget, our collective effort
Given the fiscal trade-offs we all face, we can no longer AFFORD to exclude the public in public budgeting. As the municipality in the Netherlands declared, the challenges we face are “too difficult to be solved by government alone.”
Change in public finance is a long game. We must be strategic and patient. But it feels as if we are in a moment where the right ideas, people, and institutions may be aligning. The strategic question is where in the ecosystem participation can add most value, improve choices, and ensure follow through – and who must act together to make it happen.
We must grasp this moment to advance the public’s right to participate. This is not about winners and losers. It is about transforming “the government’s budget” into “our budget” — a collective effort to shepherd our increasingly scarce collective resources.