Crowdsourcing – or getting the public to do your work for you – is all the rage among hi-tech media-savvy corporations, but the idea has now been taken up by the chancellor of the exchequer. George Osborne has this morning opened an "online portal", where voters can submit their proposals for next month's budget.

Speaking on a visit to Ultra Electronics, a manufacturing firm in Cheltenham, Osborne said: "I want to hear about your brightest and best ideas."

With swingeing public finance cuts dominating the agenda, Treasury officials have been stung into promising a "budget for growth" on 23 March – a phrase used a number of times during Labour's years in power. But the chancellor's plea suggested no one yet knows what will be in it.

"Next month's budget will be all about growth," Osborne said today. "In particular I want to know what businesses, large and small, want from me. Because it's British businesses like the one I'm visiting today here in Cheltenham – a British hi-tech and export success story – that will lead our recovery. So go online and tell me what you think."

In the run-up to last autumn's spending review, more than 100,000 members of the public submitted their ideas about how the government could save money.

The coalition has been criticised in recent weeks, including by outgoing CBI boss Richard Lambert, for failing to present a coherent strategy for restoring the British economy to health after the credit crunch.

News that GDP contracted by 0.5% in the final quarter of 2010, and unemployment has risen to 2.5 million, have given a fresh imperative to the coalition's long-awaited "growth review," which is now expected to appear alongside the budget. In a speech in Rotherham this afternoon, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg is expected to say the coalition should not apologise for taking its time.