Costing Studies

We have developed successful methodologies for undertaking projects which set out to assess costs of delivering programmes. This includes costs associated with:

• delivering partnership activities
• collaborative work
• timetabling
• programme and course development
• teaching
• support

This approach requires a detailed understanding of the operation of projects and programmes, together with a rigourous assessment of the individual elements that make up the overall costs.

Our research has addressed questions like:

• what are the resource costs involved in delivering different programmes/interventions?
• what causes costs to differ from area to area, and from intervention to intervention?
• is there any qualitative evidence of different marginal costs, should greater/reduced volume of intervention be considered?
• are there common practices for accounting for fixed costs (overheads)?

Principles which drive our approach include:

• aiming for actual costs
• supplementing gaps with estimated costs agreed with stakeholders
• being clear about assumptions
• questioning and challenging assumptions
• reality checking
• comparison with existing data

The aggregation of such costs gives this approach the power to look at variations within and between units of analysis e.g. partnerships, and to look at overall costs across a programme.We use the Microsoft Access database to manage this detailed information and to support effective analysis.

Our work in this areas has enabled clients to check whether funding is sufficient to cover costs, to identify areas for cost savings and to understand the performance of collaborative arrangements.