Disadvantages of participatory budgets
- They consume more time and therefore are more expensive
- The advantage of management participation may be negated by failure to implement the budget by senior management leading to dissatisfaction similar to that experienced with imposed budgets.
- Such budgets may cause managers to introduce budgetary slacks ( A budgetary slack is a margin set between what can be achieved and what managers state will be achieved)
- Managers may be unqualified to participate and therefore the budgets may be unachievable
- Participatory budgets may support empire building by sub-ordinates.
- An earlier start to the budgeting process maybe required when there is uncertainty about the future.