Brazilian Job

I was pleased to learn about Participatory Budgeting (PB) a practice which originated in Brazil in Porto Alegre where it now covers 18% of public spending. I like to visualise this legacy to the world of public service accounting (1200 cities are now using it worldwide) on the list of Brazilian exports alongside less substantial items. (you can google those)

PB is when the citizens get a direct say in small and usually tokenist portions of public spend. This changes the dynamic between the governors and the governed. That’s good especially where officials are corrupt or out of touch. Having sat through parish budget committees in the UK however, I think it's gonna change very little in the UK.