The paper discusses participatory budgeting as one of the institutions of direct democracy and a form of co-decision of residents in the process of spending public funds at the disposal of local government units. Its essence is the activation of citizens, building trust and cooperation between the authorities and the inhabitants, as well as the implementation of the principles of equality and social justice. The significance of the participatory budgeting as a new form of influence on the decisions of the local government apparatus is not so much about ensuring citizens participation in managing public finances as it is primarily about education and increasing public awareness in the area of democratization of local government. The participatory budgeting in Poland was considered in the view of models of democracy: direct, representative (conventional) and participatory.

The co-creation/co-production paradigm received significant attention in the last decades from Public Administration managers, officials, and scholars as a viable tool to overcome the limits of the New Public Management framework. Some scholars recognise that co-creation can be the basis for building an alternative administration model called New Public Governance. Other research found that co-creation is an innovative practice in the social investment policy frame. A more recent EU research project examines the idea and practice of co-creation in public services informed by lived experience pilots in 10 European countries. This paper presents the Italian case as an example of an institutional configuration open to the citizens’ participation in the co-design of public services. The paper is organised as follows. In the first paragraph, we illustrate the recent development of the legislation concerning the participation of citizens and civil society organisations in designing and delivering public services and/or management of common goods. The second paragraph deals with a deep analysis of “grey material” and scientific publications concerning the history, evolution and future perspectives of the “Shared Administration” procedures. The third paragraph presents a case study of collaboration between citizens, Third Sector/Civil Society Organisations (TSO/CSO) and public administration at the local level (Municipality of Bologna). The conclusive paragraph summarises the key findings of our study.