Participatory Budgeting of the Logroño City Council
Participation website improvements included in the service
The unique methodology applied in Logroño's participatory budgeting process required specific adjustments to the platform. For example, in many municipalities, project voting is done shopping-cart style, where citizens can vote for as many projects as they wish up to a maximum budget. In Logroño, however, the "one person, one vote" rule applies. For this reason, Kuorum's development team prioritized this new functionality, which is now being used by several clients.
This is one of the key advantages of Kuorum's service compared to consultancy companys that implement open-source software solutions. Our technology is proprietary, and all our clients benefit from the same codebase. In other words, improvements made for one client are automatically accessible to all others without additional investment. This economy of scale makes projects more cost-effective, a particularly critical factor for public administrations.
Increased participation and security in participatory budgeting
Participatory budgeting involves many stakeholders: council members, municipal staff, neighborhood associations, community groups, and the general public. Each plays a role, and their dedication is crucial for the project's success. Our technology is designed to reduce the effort required from all these actors. For example, during the technical evaluation phase, associations and municipal staff collaborate to determine which proposals are technically viable and can move to the voting phase. With Kuorum, this team can comfortably collaborate from home using a project table that allows them to filter proposals by category, sort them by the number of supports, or assign budgets. If needed, they can also export the information to Excel for sharing with third parties.
Another feature that made Logroño City Council opt for a citizen participation website based on Kuorum was security. When voting and submitting proposals, citizens have to identify themselves with a process that involves the processing of personal data. Not just any provider is prepared to manage this type of process with the necessary guarantees. Kuorum complies with the National Security Scheme, ISO27001 for Information Security - the international standard in cybersecurity - and ISO9001 for Quality Management, audited by IQNET annually.
Participatory budgeting, forums, debates, surveys, voting, events, and petitions
Logroño City Council chose Kuorum's technology to carry out its participatory budgeting process, but this wasn't the only feature they found useful. Event booking tools proved invaluable for managing attendance limits during the pandemic. Forums helped sector councils reach agreements, and surveys allowed municipal staff and council members to gather firsthand information.
The same applies to automatic vote counting or mass communication tools, which are simple to use thanks to the contact manager that filters users based on their previous activity. Technology is not an end in itself but a means to achieve better results with less effort—and that’s exactly what the Logroño City Council needed.
Whether you're looking to open your municipality to continuous online participation or have a specific need to gauge public opinion on a particular topic, request a demo or contact us and we will advise you with no strings attached.
"Submitting proposals and voting had never been so easy, for both our councilors and the citizens."
At Kuorum we help people around the world make collective decisions that matter. Tell us your goals and we'll tell you how we can help.
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