Councils are seeking public views on spending cuts in what has been described as "one of the biggest ever consultations".
An online web application is to be rolled out by the Local Government Group, which will give residents sight of how councils spend money and will invite suggestions on how to reduce their council's expenditure by millions of pounds.
The website named YouChoose is set to be one of the most comprehensive surveys on how people want taxes to be spent.
Dozens of councils are said to have expressed interest in using the software as a consultation tool.
It is hoped that the software will allow hundreds of thousands of residents to give their views and show them the impact of their spending choices.
"YouChoose gives people a say on how the council should make savings. It lets residents see how much the council spends on services and suggest ways to save money," said Cllr Keith Prince, Leader of Redbridge Council.
"The government is reducing public spending, so all councils will have to cut costs while trying to reduce the impact on frontline services as far as possible. We want the people of Redbridge to have a say on how public money should be spent and where it can be saved.
"As democratically elected representatives, the councillors will make the final decisions. But before making these difficult decisions, councillors want to hear directly from the people we serve."
Rob Whiteman, managing director of Local Government Improvement & Development, said: "The scale of these cuts will leave councils faced with some of the most difficult decisions they will ever have had to make. These are extraordinary times, and it is only right that these tough choices are informed by the people who will be most affected.
"This consultation will be one of the most thorough and comprehensive ever taken on local public spending. Residents will be given a breakdown of exactly where their taxes are spent and invited to tackle the incredibly difficult balancing act of cutting millions of pounds from the budget and keeping increases to council tax low, while protecting vital services like schools, libraries, parks and waste collection."
PDF version
YouChoose is an online budget simulator that encourages members of the public to consider where council budget cuts should fall, where efficiencies might be made, and where income might be generated.
The tool was originally developed by the London Borough of Redbridge to engage its citizens in the difficult decisions that may arise from a substantial potential reduction to its budget. In partnership with the Local Government Group and YouGov, YouChoose is now freely available to all councils in England and Wales. With this, they too have a tool to help them engage their citizens in decisions about how they spend their revenue budgets and help their citizens understand the tough choices the council faces.
As democratically-elected representatives, councillors make the final decisions, but this tool helps them hear directly from their residents.
The spending categories in the tool are:
However, the software can be individually tailored by councils.
The software will allow councillors, officers and the public to see the results as they come in. A number of graphical presentations are available instantly, for example, how the number of responses change over time and which are the spending categories most frequently selected for cuts. The data can also be downloaded for other sorts of analysis.
YouChoose can currently be seen in action on the website of the London Borough of Redbridge:
Redbridge Conversation 2010
For further information, see the guide to YouChoose:
YouChoose: participatory budgeting tool guide (PDF, 4 pages, 83KB)
http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=22436695