From 18 April till 12 May the City Parliament of Hamburg is offering a public Internet forum, where the citizens can discuss the topic "Future Budget of the City of Hamburg"

TuTech Innovation GmbH is in charge with the performance of the discussion forum. The decision to involve the public was done by all fractions of Hamburg's City Parliament.

Entering http://www.hamburg-haushalt.de Hamburg's citizens can participate in the discussion and prepare online a budgetary planning for the year 2016. The township wants to know: which public services are important for the citizens? How can Hamburg reduce its debts?
In the different forums the citizen can develop concrete suggestions and ideas on how to use the finances more efficiently, sensibly and fairly.
"We need a long-term perspective where the citizen take part with their ideas" the president of the City Parliament, Berndt Röder, says. On the short-term 90 % of the commission’s budget is fixed. The most important part of it are the personal costs comprising nearly 40 % of the whole budget.

Of a special interest might be the "budget planner" - an electronic tool the participants can draw up their own draft of the budgetary planning for the year 2016 with. By the help of slide control they can distribute the money in a new way. To give an orientation the "budget planner" offers the figures of the budget 2005. Do you want to enlarge the budget for internal safety, education or the port? Playfully, the participants can try to transform their political approaches into real figures and allocate the money to the different departments. The "budget planner" shows the results and consequences immediately. But caution: in the end it is not allowed to overdraw the budget!

With the online-discussion the City Parliament of Hamburg enters new ground in the field of e-democracy. It is the first state parliament that gives its citizens the opportunity to participate in the financial planning. The results of the discourse will be involved by the City parliament’s financial board into the consultations about the budgetary planning 2007/2008 and the medium-term financial planning.

The project is being implemented by TuTech Innovation GmbH, department for interactive communication.  On TuTech's Internet platform DEMOS other online discussions like the  "Metropolis Hamburg - Growing City", "Hamburg - family friendly living" and "BioTalk" have been implemented successfully. DEMOS (Delphi Mediation Online System) facilitates result-oriented online discussions with large numbers of participants in a friendly and constructive atmosphere.

http://www.tutech.de

Published by Tina, Schmidt-Nausch

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