Where to cut, what to fund?

Budget policy is often considered the supreme discipline of elected parliaments and local councils. But citizens selected by lot are increasingly being involved in decisions about what public money should be spent on and where savings should be made. 

France is about to ask 150 people to consider the future of the country’s public finances, the German municipality of Werbach gave a Citizens’ Assembly the difficult task of identifying possible savings, and Finnish municipalities are experimenting with sortition in their financial planning. Other cities ask randomly selected citizens to consider which projects should receive funding from a participatory budget. The processes differ considerably – but they share an attempt to turn an ostensibly technical budget question into a public debate about political priorities.

Trade-offs are becoming the subject of citizens’ assemblies

A budget consists of columns of figures. The decisions behind them, however, are very concrete. Will the swimming pool remain open? Will a road be renovated? How much money will go to schools, culture or climate action? Which fees will increase? And when cuts have to be made, who will bear the consequences?

These are precisely the kinds of trade-offs that are increasingly becoming the subject of Citizens’ Assemblies. Two models can be distinguished. In Citizens’ assemblies on public budgets, randomly selected citizens consider a municipal or national budget, revenues and expenditure, or possible savings. In participatory budgets using sortition, by contrast, a limited amount of money is available, and a Citizens’ Assembly considers or decides how it should be spent.

France takes on public finances

The largest experiment of its kind is due to begin in France in November 2026. The Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) is inviting 150 randomly selected citizens to a national Citizens’ Assembly on public finances. They will receive information, hear from experts and interest groups, and then develop proposals for the long-term development of France’s public finances. The work is due to be completed by the end of March 2027.

CESE President Claire Thoury justifies the choice of such a difficult subject by pointing to the experience of previous Citizens’ Assemblies. Participants are given time, information and the opportunity to hear from experts and compare different experiences. Citizens’ Assemblies, she argues, have shown that citizens do not shy away from difficult questions: “They do not run away from complexity.”

A French constitutional tradition

Thoury also places the Citizens’ Assembly within a French constitutional tradition stretching back more than 200 years. Article 14 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 gives citizens the right, “by themselves or through their representatives”, to determine the necessity of public taxation, to consent to it and to monitor how it is used. The Declaration forms part of French constitutional law.

When presenting the Citizens’ Assembly, Thoury placed particular emphasis on two words: “by themselves”. From this, she argued that public finances should not be the exclusive domain of experts, government and parliament. Citizens should be able to take an informed part in determining collective budget decisions.

The subject confronts those selected with decisions that politicians know only too well. According to Thoury, it is not simply a matter of a deficit figure or a choice between spending less and raising more revenue. Different interests have to be weighed against one another. The Citizens’ Assembly is therefore not expected to produce a single list of cuts, but rather different long-term pathways for France’s public finances.

Werbach asks citizens where to save

In Germany, a small municipality has already tried out how this can work. Werbach in Baden-Württemberg was facing difficult budget decisions. Instead of merely explaining the financial constraints to residents, the municipality asked a Citizens’ Forum to consider them.

Randomly selected residents examined the municipal budget in early 2026. Their task was not to compile a list of additional wishes. They were asked to develop criteria for difficult budget decisions, make recommendations on conflicts over the allocation of resources and identify potential savings. Beforehand, residents could contribute their ideas and concerns to a map of issues. The results of the Citizens’ Assembly were then intended to feed into the political budget deliberations.

Mayor Georg Wyrwoll describes one of the fundamental difficulties of such a process in the citizens’ recommendations: “The human brain is not really made for budget plans.” Precisely for that reason, he argued, it had been important to look at the bigger picture. Instead of focusing solely on their own concerns, the Citizens’ Assembly considered interdependencies, priorities and responsibility for the municipality as a whole.

When there is not enough money for everything

This fundamentally distinguishes Werbach from a participatory budget. Those selected were not allowed to distribute an additional pot of money. They had to deal with scarcity. A Citizens’ Assembly cannot create money that does not exist. But it can show which priorities a diverse group sets after receiving detailed information and discussing the issues together.

This is one of the distinctive features of Citizens’ Assemblies on public budgets. Many participation processes ask citizens what they would like. A limited budget, by contrast, forces them to weigh competing wishes against one another.

Finland makes the budget a matter for citizens

In Finland, this approach is now being tested systematically. In 2023 and 2024, the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra supported six municipalities in linking randomly selected citizens’ assemblies directly to their regular financial planning: Turku, Jyväskylä, Salo, Pieksämäki, Merikarvia and Rautalampi. Citizens considered issues including balancing municipal budgets, investments, housing supply and the consequences of spending cuts.

The tasks deliberately differed from one municipality to another. In Turku, the Citizens’ Assembly considered balancing the budget from the perspective of children and young people. In Jyväskylä, the emphasis was more strongly on the consequences of savings: How does a programme of spending cuts affect everyday life, and which sections of the population are particularly affected? The recommendations were intended to feed directly into budget preparation.

This gives budget figures a social dimension. Instead of asking only how much money a cut will save, randomly selected citizens can examine who will be affected by the saving. Jyväskylä’s Finance Director Vesa Voutilainen later reported that the Citizens’ Assembly’s statement had confirmed the administration’s impact assessments and given decision-makers additional confidence that they were also accurate from the perspective of residents.

Melbourne opened its books

One of the early major examples comes from Australia. In 2014, the City of Melbourne asked a Citizens’ Assembly of 43 randomly selected people to develop recommendations for its ten-year financial plan. The group was asked to consider not only expenditure but explicitly the priorities for both spending and revenue. To enable it to do so, the city opened its financial data and provided participants with access to the administration and experts.

After several months, the citizens produced eleven recommendations. They covered issues including charges, the environment and climate action, municipal assets, public services and investment. Melbourne therefore represents a particularly far-reaching model: those selected did not consider a special pot of money, but the financial future of the entire city.

Ghent allocates millions with the help of sortition

Ghent has developed a different model. The Belgian city made a total of €6.25 million available for projects in its neighbourhoods. Citizens could develop ideas, but the selection was not to be left solely to those who were already inclined to participate.

Ghent therefore supplemented its participatory budget with randomly selected neighbourhood citizens’ assemblies. They examined the proposals, developed ideas further together with those who had submitted them, and ultimately decided which projects should be implemented with the limited funds available. In total, 150 projects received €6.25 million through the participatory budget.

Astrid De Bruycker, the city councillor then responsible for citizen participation, now sees sortition as a model that can extend beyond participatory budgeting. She described Ghent as an international pioneer in the use of randomly selected Citizens’ Assemblies and called it a proven way of “bringing citizens and politics closer together.”

Ghent thus combines two forms of citizen participation: many people can submit ideas – while a randomly selected, diverse group takes responsibility for the intensive discussion and selection process.

A participatory budget is not the same as a citizens’ assembly on the budget

Ghent therefore represents a different form of participation from Werbach, Finland, Melbourne or the French Citizens’ Assembly. With a participatory budget, the financial framework has already been determined. The central question is: What should we do with this money?

A Citizens’ Assembly on a public budget begins one step earlier. How much should be spent in the first place? Where should the money come from? Which public services should take priority? Where can savings be made? What are the consequences of cuts? And which burdens are acceptable?

The second model is politically more contentious. A project for a park, youth centre or cycle path may be popular. Considering cuts to a municipal service, higher fees or additional revenues, by contrast, requires participants to weigh competing interests against one another.

From a wish list to difficult choices

This is where sortition may have a particular characteristic. Members do not have to campaign for election. They do not represent a political party and do not have to worry about their next re-election. At the same time, they have no blank cheque: they can only work within the same financial constraints that elected politicians face.

Citizens’ Assemblies on public budgets therefore provide a demanding test of what collective discussion can achieve. Does it still work when the task is not to distribute additional benefits, but to decide what people are prepared to do without?

Werbach and the Finnish experiments are therefore at least as interesting as participatory budgets involving millions of euros. They show whether randomly selected citizens are prepared not merely to make demands of politicians and public administrations, but to grapple themselves with financial constraints and conflicts over the distribution of resources. The evaluation of the Finnish experiments concluded that, after receiving the necessary introduction, citizens were able to deal with difficult budget questions and that their recommendations helped decision-makers identify acceptable savings.

Democracy’s most difficult calculation

France is now taking this question to a new level. One hundred and fifty people are to consider the long-term development of an entire country’s public finances. They will neither adopt the budget nor replace parliament. But they are expected to show publicly which approaches a diverse group of citizens considers viable after receiving information and discussing the issues together.

When announcing the Citizens’ Assembly, Claire Thoury offered a striking justification: the very fact that public finances are complicated is all the more reason to convene a Citizens’ Assembly. Previous experience, she argued, has shown that people are willing to engage with difficult questions when they are given time, information and suitable conditions.

Perhaps this is what ultimately connects the discussions about savings in Werbach, the multimillion-euro neighbourhood budgets in Ghent and France’s national public finances. Talking about money ultimately means talking about priorities. A Citizens’ Assembly does not make these decisions for politicians. But it can confront people who would otherwise rarely decide on a budget together with the same uncomfortable question faced by every local council and every parliament: If everything cannot be done at once, what matters most to us collectively?

Note: The image accompanying this article was created using AI.