Participatory Budgeting of the Logroño City Council
Improvements in the participation web included in the service
The peculiarity of the methodology applied in the participatory budgets of the Logroño City Council made some modifications to the tool necessary. For example, in many city councils, voting for projects is done in the style of a shopping cart, where citizens vote for as many projects as they wish until a maximum budget is reached. However, in Logroño the rule applies: one person one vote. Therefore, Kuorum's development team prioritized this new functionality, which is already being used by several clients.
This is one of the main advantages of Kuorum's service compared to consulting companies that install open source solutions. Our technology is proprietary and all of our customers drink from the same code. In other words, the improvements we make for one client are automatically accessible to all the others, without the need to invest again. The economy of scale makes projects more cost-effective, a particularly critical factor for public administrations.
More participation and more security in participatory budgets
In a participatory budget there are many agents involved: councilor, council technicians, neighborhood associations, groups and citizens in general. Each one has a role to play. And without their dedication the project would not be possible. Our technology is designed to reduce the effort that all these agents need to invest. For example, in the technical evaluation phase, associations and city council technicians collaborate to determine which proposals are technically feasible and can move on to the voting phase. With Kuorum, this team can collaborate comfortably from home thanks to a project table that allows them to filter projects by theme, sort them by number of supporters or assign them a budget. If necessary, they can also download the information in Excel to share it 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 AENOR annually.
Participatory budgeting, forums, debates, surveys, voting, events and petitions
The Logroño City Council chose Kuorum's technology to carry out its participatory budgets. But this was not the only functionality that proved useful. Reserved seating events have been very useful to control capacity during the pandemic. The forums have helped the sectoral councils to reach agreements. And the surveys allow technicians and councilors to gather first-hand information.
Something similar happens with automatic vote counting. Or with the sending of mass communications, which is very simple thanks to the contact manager that allows users to be filtered according to their previous activity. Technology is not an end in itself, but a means to achieve better results with less effort. And that is precisely what Logroño City Council needed.
Therefore, if you are thinking of opening your city council to online participation on an ongoing basis or if you have a specific need to measure the pulse of public opinion on a specific topic, request a demo or contact us and we will advise you without obligation.
"Submitting proposals and voting has never been easier, both for our councilors and for 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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