Costs and Benefits

Abstract

In a recent British Standard, cost benefit analysis is defined as ‘The measurement of resources used in an activity and their comparison with the value of the benefit to be derived from the activity’. I have so far spent a good deal of time discussing the measurement and control of costs and resources, showing how comparison with control standards serves to improve the control of waste. There are, however, those activities where the output is not so easy to measure. These are (a) service activities and (b) control activities. The benefits from these activities tend to fall into one of these categories:

• (a) Those whose value cannot apparently be measured directly in money terms.

• (b) Those which, though they cannot be measured in money terms, can be measured in some other unit.