Planning and Spending Public Expenditure within the Framework of Participatory Budgeting – de lege lata Remarks

Abstract

After six years of Polish local government authorities practising participatory budgeting only within the framework of locally regulated consultation procedures, the year 2018 marked the official establishment of the statutory basis of the instrument in question. The adoption of statutory regulations for participatory budgeting has, on the one hand, legitimised the current practices of local government authorities to some extent, but on the other hand, making participatory budgets an obligatory instrument in towns and cities with poviat rights has warped the idea of participation. The article offers an assessment of the application of the new statutory basis of participatory budgeting in the light of the provisions regulating the planning and spending of public expenditure, accompanied by remarks on the origin of adoption of this instrument in other countries. The main aim of the article is to make the said assessment while maintaining a balance between the arguments for and against the utility of participatory budgeting from the perspective of Polish local government authorities. The discussion featured in the article comes with a question raised thus far quite rarely in the relevant literature: what is the legal nature of public expenditure spent within the framework of a participatory budget?