Project Focus Options

The current activity for this section is to evaluate scope and impact of each of these, to support the choice of a specific focus to implement. As well as general discussion, we're using impact mapping (Why, Who, How, What) as a structured way to proceed.

1. What can we do for councillors
2. Community asset utilization
3. program improvements
4. participatory budgeting
5. budget taxonomy ✓
6. toronto budget process information portal ✓
7. front line worker portal as ‘suggestion box’
8. bureaucracy (culture) hacks
9. illuminate citizen's mandate
10. improve budget support services

Guidelines:

Inclusiveness (cultural communities) Policies and Priorities Local Services Efficiency and Effectiveness

Approaches

Brainstorm problems we could solve,

1. What can we do for councillors

2. Community asset utilization

map community assets commentary on existing assets request for new or revised assets cycling assets communicating information (forming alliances)

3. program improvements

(outside budget scope?) star system to reward denmark and netherland have processes to challenge rules that cause undue hardship

4. participatory budgeting

ward citizens vote on where capital budget goes

next steps read bbto section city analyst notes for toronto brainstorm on this

5. budget taxonomy

interactive visualization must look professional content driven

Why: (apply SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound -- to these - HB:)

Goals generated during Aug 4 workshop session

• It’s public money, and the public has a right to know
• People have needs, that may or may not be helped by current budget allocations
• Impossible to have informed discussion without ready access to relevant information
• Impossible to assess value without access to relevant information

Restated for discussion purposes, by Henrik, August 6:

In time for the 2017 (2018?) budget cycle:

• support the right to know by providing public access to operating and capital budgets through natural taxonomy
• support assessment of needs support by providing links between high level budget and local assets and resources (belongs with option 2?)
• support informed debate by making easily accessible budget trends available
• support value assessment by providing links between high level budget and performance reports

Who: general public concerned citizens advocates - ngos community groups journalists (media) city staff

How: encourage use of plain language

What: connect taxonomy to community access maps?

6. toronto budget process information portal

The following notes are mainly from discussion on Aug 25, 2015. [ed: note that most of the discussion was about making budget content accessible to support participation, rather than about budget process information per se]

[ed: the discussion seemed to drift naturally toward focus on clarity (such as abstracts and common terminology), and providing contextual (comparative) frameworks which illuminate priorities and meaning in relation to value goals. Therefore a fundamental task would be to design a structured, consistent context framework, within which to organize budget information]

General summary of discussion:

How can we frame Toronto budget material in a citizen-centric way?

If the budget is the way that citizens express their vision of Toronto, then expressing that vision is very difficult if they cannot find or comprehend budget numbers or priorities, especially if those numbers/priorities are hidden inside 80-page PDFs. We'd like to uncover valuable, "hidden" information within the Toronto city budget, format that info in a visual manner to make it easier for citizens to comprehend and extract what's relevant to them, and offer context to further aid in understanding and promote our particular point-of-view / advocacy angle.

Broad topics

from report by better budget TO, four broad topics:

• participation
• accessibility
• vision
• evidence-based

Impact mapping summary:

• Why: Public information to have the same set of transparent facts
• Who: Policy people, and civic tech people (realistically), engaged citizens including groups
• How: Shift discussion toward policy priorities: less arguing over the facts will lead to more more productive discussion about policy priorities and save time
• What: a visualization that makes the budget tangible to people; a resource base to go to for common information; common, ubiquitous language

Design ideas:

• user research, find useful formats for audiences; extract meaningful summaries
• vision: evaluate against value based more than compliance based; connect budget line items to vision, and policies
• product: recasting information in terms of value to citizen
• budget presentation: who gets what when and how, being priorities
• example: helsinki visioning exercise
• consider using analyst reports as basis for public budget issue summaries; add performance reports for context; aggregation (factual) then curation based on values framework
• allow user to enter personal tax bill to their distribution of taxes
• take into account user cultural context of user groups
• citizen mandate section
  • Responsibilities
  • Support Available
• glossary of terms
• dynamic pie chart linked to underlying budget documentations
  • accompanying data and actions made
  • media instances
• high level stats regarding public assets and services delivered

Sample distribution channels

• the globe and mail, broadband institute, city hall

To do

• Specify portal requirements
• develop use cases with stakeholders
  • citizens
  • citizen groups
  • policy folks

7. front line worker portal as ‘suggestion box’

8. bureaucracy hacks

consider cultural comparisons to European models, and look at European hacks, to compare compliance based and value based management approaches

9. illuminate citizen's mandate

Look at the legal, social, and political mandates that citizens have available to them for participation in the budget process. These include both critical and constructive activities.

10. improve budget support services

examine fpars system

These could include things like the new SAP accounting system, open budget, and budget analyst resources.