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68-682: In his 2003 Pre-Budget Report , then- Chancellor Gordon Brown announced that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) would lead a new Payments Systems Task Force. The OFT recommended to the Chancellor in 2006 that the Task Force should establish a new body responsible for the integrity and efficiency of co-operative payment systems in the UK. This was set up as the Payments Council in 2007. By

136-419: A utilitarian perspective. Assuming an accurate CBA, changing the status quo by implementing the alternative with the lowest cost–benefit ratio can improve Pareto efficiency . Although CBA can offer an informed estimate of the best alternative, a perfect appraisal of all present and future costs and benefits is difficult; perfection, in economic efficiency and social welfare, is not guaranteed. The value of

204-678: A common temporal footing, using time value of money calculations. This is often done by converting the future expected streams of costs ( C {\displaystyle C} ) and benefits ( B {\displaystyle B} ) into a present value amount with a discount rate ( r {\displaystyle r} ) and the net present value defined as: NPV = ∑ t = 0 ∞ B t − C t ( 1 + r ) t {\displaystyle {\text{NPV}}=\sum _{t=0}^{\infty }{B_{t}-C_{t} \over {(1+r)^{t}}}} The selection of

272-466: A cost–benefit analysis depends on the accuracy of the individual cost and benefit estimates. Comparative studies indicate that such estimates are often flawed, preventing improvements in Pareto and Kaldor–Hicks efficiency . Interest groups may attempt to include (or exclude) significant costs in an analysis to influence its outcome. The concept of CBA dates back to an 1848 article by Jules Dupuit , and

340-417: A discount rate for this calculation is subjective. A smaller rate values the current generation and future generations equally. Larger rates (a market rate of return, for example) reflects human present bias or hyperbolic discounting : valuing money which they will receive in the near future more than money they will receive in the distant future. Empirical studies suggest that people discount future benefits in

408-402: A financial value to the life. However, non-monetary metrics have limited usefulness for evaluating policies with substantially different outcomes. Other benefits may also accrue from a policy, and metrics such as cost per life saved may lead to a substantially different ranking of alternatives than CBA.In some cases, in addition to changing the benefit indicator, the cost-benefit analysis strategy

476-659: A government consultation on separating the regulatory function from the industry body. The Payments Council went on to implement the mobile payment system Paym and the Current Account Switch Service (CASS). In April 2015, the regulatory powers of the Payments Council were transferred to a new body, the Payment Systems Regulator , set up by the Financial Conduct Authority in accordance with section 40 of

544-425: A higher weight. One reason for this is that for high income people, one monetary unit is worth less relative to low income people, so they are more willing to give up one unit in order to make a change that is favourable for them. This means that there is no symmetry in agents, i.e. some people benefit more from the same absolute monetary benefit. Any welfare change, no matter positive or negative, affects people with

612-473: A lower income stronger than people with a higher income, even if the exact monetary impacts are identical. This is more than just a challenge to the distribution of benefits in CBA, it is a critique of the ability of CBA to accurately measure benefits as, according to this critique, using unweighted absolute willingness to pay overstates the costs and benefits to the wealthy, and understates those costs and benefits to

680-692: A motion "that this House welcomes the publication of the Government's latest economic forecast, which..." rather than as a statement to the House of Commons. In 1997, Labour's new Chancellor, Gordon Brown , moved the Budget back to spring and replaced the second statement with the Pre-Budget Report (PBR). According to the "Code for Fiscal Stability", published by HM Treasury in November 1998,

748-514: A new Autumn Statement focusing on economic growth and government finances as projected by the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR). Osborne's 2015 statement on 25 November was a joint Autumn Statement and Spending Review , and included a new forecast by the OBR . In 2016, Conservative Chancellor Philip Hammond announced his intention to end the Autumn Statement: instead of a Budget in

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816-419: A number of drawbacks and limitations. A number of critical arguments have been put forward in response. That include concerns about measuring the distribution of costs and benefits, discounting the costs and benefits to future generations, and accounting for the diminishing marginal utility of income. in addition, relying solely on cost-benefit analysis may lead to neglecting the multifaceted value factors of

884-460: A policy is inexact at best. Surveys (stated preferences) or market behavior ( revealed preferences ) are often used to estimate compensation associated with a policy. Stated preferences are a direct way of assessing willingness to pay for an environmental feature, for example. Survey respondents often misreport their true preferences, however, and market behavior does not provide information about important non-market welfare impacts. Revealed preference

952-682: A project. CBA has been criticized in some disciplines as it relies on the Kaldor-Hicks criterion which does not take into account distributional issues. This means, that positive net-benefits are decisive, independent of who benefits and who loses when a certain policy or project is put into place. Phaneuf and Requate phrased it as follows "CBA today relies on the Kaldor-Hicks criteria to make statements about efficiency without addressing issues of income distribution. This has allowed economists to stay silent on issues of equity, while focusing on

1020-414: A theoretical foundation on the societal worth or benefit of a project. The cost of the project proved much simpler to calculate. Simply taking the sum of the materials and labor, in addition to the maintenance afterward, would give one the cost. Now, the costs and benefits of the project could be accurately analyzed, and an informed decision could be made. The Corps of Engineers initiated the use of CBA in

1088-642: A variety of software tools, including HERS, BCA.Net, StatBenCost, Cal-BC, and TREDIS . Guides are available from the Federal Highway Administration , Federal Aviation Administration , Minnesota Department of Transportation , California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), and the Transportation Research Board 's Transportation Economics Committee. In health economics , CBA may be an inadequate measure because willingness-to-pay methods of determining

1156-405: A way similar to these calculations. The choice makes a large difference in assessing interventions with long-term effects. An example is the equity premium puzzle , which suggests that long-term returns on equities may be higher than they should be after controlling for risk and uncertainty. If so, market rates of return should not be used to determine the discount rate because they would undervalue

1224-485: Is a direct correspondence between the form of a maximum entropy distribution and the exponential family . Examples of commonly used continuous maximum entropy distributions in simulations include: The increased use of CBA in the US regulatory process is often associated with President Ronald Reagan 's administration. Although CBA in US policy-making dates back several decades, Reagan's Executive Order 12291 mandated its use in

1292-568: Is an indirect approach to individual willingness to pay. People make market choices of items with different environmental characteristics, for example, revealing the value placed on environmental factors. The value of human life is controversial when assessing road-safety measures or life-saving medicines. Controversy can sometimes be avoided by using the related technique of cost–utility analysis, in which benefits are expressed in non-monetary units such as quality-adjusted life years . Road safety can be measured in cost per life saved, without assigning

1360-526: Is conditional on adequate alternatives being in place by 2016. However, in April 2011 the Select Committee reopened its inquiry into the 2018 target date, after receiving a large volume of correspondence from small businesses, voluntary organisations and older people who were still using cheques. The inquiry will also consider the structure and performance of the Payments Council, including whether it

1428-726: Is directly abandoned as a measure. In the 1980s, to ensure workers' safety, the US Supreme Court made an important decision to abandon the consideration of return on investment and instead seek the lowest cost-benefit to meet specific standards. Another metric is valuing the environment, which in the 21st century is typically assessed by valuing ecosystem services to humans (such as air and water quality and pollution ). Monetary values may also be assigned to other intangible effects such as business reputation, market penetration, or long-term enterprise strategy alignment. CBA generally attempts to put all relevant costs and benefits on

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1496-449: Is governed by OMB Circular A-4 . CBA attempts to measure the positive or negative consequences of a project. A similar approach is used in the environmental analysis of total economic value . Both costs and benefits can be diverse. Costs tend to be most thoroughly represented in cost–benefit analyses due to relatively-abundant market data. The net benefits of a project may incorporate cost savings, public willingness to pay (implying that

1564-569: Is less laborious and time-consuming, since it does not involve the monetization of outcomes (which can be difficult in some cases). It has been argued that if modern cost–benefit analyses had been applied to decisions such as whether to mandate the removal of lead from gasoline, block the construction of two proposed dams just above and below the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River , and regulate workers' exposure to vinyl chloride ,

1632-503: Is often used by organizations to appraise the desirability of a given policy. It is an analysis of the expected balance of benefits and costs, including an account of any alternatives and the status quo . CBA helps predict whether the benefits of a policy outweigh its costs (and by how much), relative to other alternatives. This allows the ranking of alternative policies in terms of a cost–benefit ratio. Generally, accurate cost–benefit analysis identifies choices which increase welfare from

1700-516: Is possible to use different methods. One is to use weights, and there are a number of different approaches for calculating these weights. Often, a Bergson- Samuelson social welfare function is used and weights are calculated according to the willingness-to-pay of people. Another method is to use percentage willingness to pay, where willingness to pay is measured as a percentage of total income or wealth to control for income. These methods would also help to address distributional concerns raised by

1768-475: Is sufficiently accountable for the impact of its decisions on consumers. The chairman of the inquiry, Andrew Tyrie MP, stated, "The Payments Council has not thought through its arguments carefully enough and its first piece of work on the cost–benefit of abolishing cheques was clearly defective." The Payments Council welcomed the opportunity to reassure the public that cheques would not be abolished before acceptable alternatives were available. On 12 July 2011

1836-743: Is the support set of a probability density function f ( x ) {\displaystyle f(x)} . Suppose that we impose a series of constraints that must be satisfied: where the last equality is a series of moment conditions. Maximizing the entropy with these constraints leads to the functional : J = max f ∫ S ( − f log ⁡ f + λ 0 f + ∑ i = 1 m λ i r i f ) d x {\displaystyle J=\max _{f}\;\int _{\mathcal {S}}\left(-f\log f+\lambda _{0}f+\sum _{i=1}^{m}\lambda _{i}r_{i}f\right)dx} where

1904-622: Is to make use of the principle of maximum entropy , which states that the distribution with the best representation of current knowledge is the one with the largest entropy - defined for continuous distributions as: H ( X ) = E [ − log ⁡ f ( X ) ] = − ∫ S f ( x ) log ⁡ f ( x ) d x {\displaystyle H(X)=\mathbb {E} \left[-\log f(X)\right]=-\int _{\mathcal {S}}f(x)\log f(x)dx} where S {\displaystyle {\mathcal {S}}}

1972-508: Is used to determine options which provide the best approach to achieving benefits while preserving savings in, for example, transactions, activities, and functional business requirements. A CBA may be used to compare completed or potential courses of action, and to estimate or evaluate the value against the cost of a decision, project, or policy. It is commonly used to evaluate business or policy decisions (particularly public policy ), commercial transactions, and project investments. For example,

2040-414: The β i {\displaystyle \beta _{i}} terms correspond to the factor loadings. A generalization of these methods can be found in arbitrage pricing theory , which allows for an arbitrary number of risk premiums in the calculation of the required return. Risk associated with project outcomes is usually handled with probability theory . Although it can be factored into

2108-522: The λ i {\displaystyle \lambda _{i}} are Lagrange multipliers . Maximizing this functional leads to the form of a maximum entropy distribution: f ( x ) = exp ⁡ [ λ 0 − 1 + ∑ i = 1 m λ i r i ( x ) ] {\displaystyle f(x)=\exp \left[\lambda _{0}-1+\sum _{i=1}^{m}\lambda _{i}r_{i}(x)\right]} There

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2176-527: The Clinton administration during the 1990s. Clinton furthered the anti-regulatory environment with his Executive Order 12866 . The order changed some of Reagan's language, requiring benefits to justify (rather than exceeding) costs and adding "reduction of discrimination or bias" as a benefit to be analyzed. Criticisms of CBA (including uncertainty valuations, discounting future values, and the calculation of risk) were used to argue that it should play no part in

2244-1078: The Fama-French model : r = r f ⏟ Risk-Free Rate + β M [ E ( r M ) − r f ] ⏟ Market Risk + β S M B [ E ( r S ) − E ( r B ) ] ⏟ Size Factor + β H M L [ E ( r H ) − E ( r L ) ] ⏟ Value Factor {\displaystyle r=\underbrace {r_{f}} _{\text{Risk-Free Rate}}+\beta _{M}\underbrace {\left[\mathbb {E} (r_{M})-r_{f}\right]} _{\text{Market Risk}}+\beta _{SMB}\underbrace {\left[\mathbb {E} (r_{S})-\mathbb {E} (r_{B})\right]} _{\text{Size Factor}}+\beta _{HML}\underbrace {\left[\mathbb {E} (r_{H})-\mathbb {E} (r_{L})\right]} _{\text{Value Factor}}} where

2312-469: The Gordon–Loeb model for decisions concerning cybersecurity investments). CBA's application to broader public policy began with the work of Otto Eckstein , who laid out a welfare economics foundation for CBA and its application to water-resource development in 1958. It was applied in the US to water quality, recreational travel, and land conservation during the 1960s, and the concept of option value

2380-541: The LINK ATM Scheme. The National Payments Plan was an annual document in which the Payments Council set out its strategic vision for the future development of payment services in the UK. The first national payments plan was published in May 2008 and updates were published on an annual basis. The first major move of the Payments Council, in 2009, was to agree to a target of 2018 for the closure of cheque clearing in

2448-523: The Monte Carlo method . However, even a low parameter of uncertainty does not guarantee the success of a project. Suppose that we have sources of uncertainty in a CBA that are best treated with the Monte Carlo method, and the distributions describing uncertainty are all continuous. How do we go about choosing the appropriate distribution to represent the sources of uncertainty? One popular method

2516-548: The British Government , also known as the "mini-budget", is one of the two statements HM Treasury makes each year to Parliament upon publication of economic forecasts, the second being the Autumn Statement presented later in the year. At 2016's autumn statement, it was announced the budget would move to the autumn, with a spring statement taking place the following year. Both usually involve speeches in

2584-459: The EU's Sixth Framework Programme , reviewed transport appraisal guidance of EU member states and found significant national differences. HEATCO aimed to develop guidelines to harmonise transport appraisal practice across the EU. Transport Canada promoted CBA for major transport investments with the 1994 publication of its guidebook. US federal and state transport departments commonly apply CBA with

2652-549: The Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013. On 29 June 2015, the Payments Council was then relaunched as the trade association Payments UK . The board of the Payments Council consisted of: Of the fifteen directors on the Board, eleven were industry-appointed directors who represented a cross section of Payments Council membership, and four independent directors. Each independent director held one voting seat and

2720-580: The House of Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer . The Spring Statement for 2019 took place in March 2019. In 2020 the spring statement was upgraded to a full budget following cancellation of autumn 2019's budget. and additional statements were made in summer and autumn 2020 . In 2021 the spring statement was also replaced by a full budget . The duty to publish two annual economic forecasts

2788-506: The Kaldor-Hick criterion. Economic cost-benefit analysis tends to limit the assessment of benefits to economic values, ignoring the importance of other value factors such as the wishes of minority groups, inclusiveness and respect for the rights of others. These value factors are difficult to rank and measure in terms of weighting, yet cost-benefit analysis suffers from the inability to consider these factors comprehensively, thus lacking

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2856-453: The PBR was intended to "encourage debate on the proposals under consideration for the Budget". The PBR included a report on progress since the Budget, an update on the state of the national economy and the Government's finances, and announcements of proposed new tax measures and consultation papers. Conservative Chancellor George Osborne replaced the PBR and its policy announcements in 2010 with

2924-443: The Payments Council announced it had cancelled the 2018 target date to close cheque clearing and that cheques will remain as long as customers need them. The Treasury Select Committee described the matter as a "debacle", stating The Payments Council was able to take decisions affecting millions of people at its own initiative without any effective scrutiny by a regulatory body. Pre-Budget Report The Spring Statement of

2992-512: The Sort Code Validation Accreditation Scheme (SCVAS), which aimed to improve the distribution and validation of bank reference data within the UK payments industry. This was to be achieved via commercial providers offering products and services to verify sort codes used in electronic payment processing. The Payments Council clashed with the Government in 2011 over plans to abolish cheques . This led to

3060-548: The Spring, and an Autumn Statement, there will instead be a Budget in the Autumn, and a Spring Statement, with the first on 13 March 2018. The statement has been held in the past during different seasons and with alternate names: Cost%E2%80%93benefit analysis Cost–benefit analysis ( CBA ), sometimes also called benefit–cost analysis , is a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. It

3128-705: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission must conduct cost-benefit analyses before instituting regulations or deregulations. CBA has two main applications: CBA is related to cost-effectiveness analysis . Benefits and costs in CBA are expressed in monetary terms and are adjusted for the time value of money ; all flows of benefits and costs over time are expressed on a common basis in terms of their net present value , regardless of whether they are incurred at different times. Other related techniques include cost–utility analysis , risk–benefit analysis , economic impact analysis , fiscal impact analysis, and social return on investment (SROI) analysis. Cost–benefit analysis

3196-617: The UK. It also announced that the cheque guarantee card scheme would end in June 2011. The Payments Council advised a Treasury Select Committee inquiry in February 2010 that cheques were in "terminal decline", down to 3.5 million per day in 2009 from a peak of 11 million in 1990. After lobbying from the charity sector , the Council reaffirmed in October 2010 that the 2018 closure

3264-521: The US, after the Federal Navigation Act of 1936 mandated cost–benefit analysis for proposed federal-waterway infrastructure. The Flood Control Act of 1939 was instrumental in establishing CBA as federal policy, requiring that "the benefits to whomever they accrue [be] in excess of the estimated costs." More recently, cost-benefit analysis has been applied to decisions regarding investments in cybersecurity-related activities (e.g., see

3332-549: The announcement of spending with the Budget, merging tax and spending announcements. Doing so moved the Budget to November. To fulfill the legal obligation to make two statements, Clarke began the practice of making a Summer Statement focusing on economic growth forecasts. Unlike the Autumn Statements preceding them and the Pre-Budget Reports that replaced them, Summer Statements took the form of debate on

3400-655: The application of CBA to public policies include the Canadian guide for regulatory analysis, the Australian guide for regulation and finance, and the US guides for health-care and emergency-management programs. CBA for transport investment began in the UK with the M1 motorway project and was later used for many projects, including the London Underground 's Victoria line . The New Approach to Appraisal (NATA)

3468-487: The discount rate (to have uncertainty increasing over time), it is usually considered separately. Particular consideration is often given to agent risk aversion : preferring a situation with less uncertainty to one with greater uncertainty, even if the latter has a higher expected return . Uncertainty in CBA parameters can be evaluated with a sensitivity analysis , which indicates how results respond to parameter changes. A more formal risk analysis may also be undertaken with

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3536-598: The distant future. For publicly traded companies, it is possible to find a project's discount rate by using an equilibrium asset pricing model to find the required return on equity for the company and then assuming that the risk profile of a given project is similar to that the company faces. Commonly used models include the capital asset pricing model (CAPM): r = r f + β [ E ( r M ) − r f ] {\displaystyle r=r_{f}+\beta \left[\mathbb {E} (r_{M})-r_{f}\right]} and

3604-469: The measures would not have been implemented (although all are considered highly successful). The US Clean Air Act has been cited in retrospective studies as a case in which benefits exceeded costs, but knowledge of the benefits (attributable largely to the benefits of reducing particulate pollution ) was not available until many years later. A generic cost–benefit analysis has the following steps: In United States regulatory policy, cost-benefit analysis

3672-453: The more familiar task of measuring costs and benefits". The challenge raised is that it is possible for the benefits of successive policies to consistently accrue to the same group of individuals, and CBA is ambivalent between providing benefits to those that have received them in the past and those that have been consistently excluded. Policy solutions, such as progressive taxation can address some of these concerns. Others have critiqued

3740-457: The poor. Sometimes this is framed in terms of an argument about democracy, that each person's preferences should be given the same weight in an analysis (one person one vote), while under a standard CBA model the preferences of the wealthy are given greater weight. Taken together, according to this objection, not using weights is a decision in itself – richer people receive de facto a bigger weight. To compensate for this difference in valuation, it

3808-465: The potential harmful impacts of climate change. The growing relevance of climate change has led to a re-examination of the practice of discounting in CBA. These biases can lead to biased resource allocation. The main criticism stems from the diminishing marginal utility of income. According to this critique, without using weights in the CBA, it is not the case that everyone "matters" the same but rather that people with greater ability to pay receive

3876-406: The practice of discounting future costs and benefits for a variety of reasons, including the potential undervaluing of the temporally distant cost of climate change and other environmental damage, and the concern that such a practice effectively ignores the preferences of future generations. Some scholars argue that the use of discounting makes CBA biased against future generations, and understates

3944-496: The public has no legal right to the benefits of the policy), or willingness to accept compensation (implying that the public has a right to the benefits of the policy) for the policy's welfare change. The guiding principle of evaluating benefits is to list all parties affected by an intervention and add the positive or negative value (usually monetary) that they ascribe to its effect on their welfare. The actual compensation an individual would require to have their welfare unchanged by

4012-537: The regulatory process. The use of CBA in the regulatory process continued under the Obama administration, along with the debate about its practical and objective value. Some analysts oppose the use of CBA in policy-making, and those in favor of it support improvements in analysis and calculations. As a concept in economics, cost-benefit analysis has provided a valuable reference for many public construction and governmental decisions, but its application has gradually revealed

4080-454: The regulatory process. After campaigning on a deregulation platform, he issued the 1981 EO authorizing the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to review agency regulations and requiring federal agencies to produce regulatory impact analyses when the estimated annual impact exceeded $ 100 million. During the 1980s, academic and institutional critiques of CBA emerged. The three main criticisms were: These criticisms continued under

4148-466: The sum of each user's willingness to pay, Dupuit illustrated that the social benefit of the thing (bridge or road or canal) could be measured. Some users may be willing to pay nearly nothing, others much more, but the sum of these would shed light on the benefit of it. It should be reiterated that Dupuit was not suggesting that the government perfectly price-discriminate and charge each user exactly what they would pay. Rather, their willingness to pay provided

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4216-697: The time of a planned two-year OFT review in 2009, the Payments Council had taken over some activities from the Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS), which no longer exists. One of the tasks of the Payments Council was to implement the Faster Payments Service , taking clearing times in the UK from among the slowest to among the fastest in the world. Criticisms made in 2009 included delays and shortcomings in delivery, and inability to ensure that Faster Payments members promptly passed on benefits to their customers. In 2010, it sponsored

4284-466: The value of human life can be influenced by income level. Variants, such as cost–utility analysis , QALY and DALY to analyze the effects of health policies, may be more suitable. For some environmental effects, cost–benefit analysis can be replaced by cost-effectiveness analysis . This is especially true when one type of physical outcome is sought, such as a reduction in energy use by an increase in energy efficiency. Using cost-effectiveness analysis

4352-511: Was appointed for a period of three years, which could be extended once for a further three years. The independent directors together had the power of veto and produced an annual report each year. The Payments Council was a voluntary membership organisation, with a mix of full and associate members. On behalf of the UK payments industry as a whole, the Payments Council operated contracts with service providers such as BACS , CHAPS , Faster Payments , Cheque and Credit Clearing Company Limited and

4420-649: Was created by the Industry Act 1975 , with the first such publication occurring in December 1976. The first Autumn Statement combined the announcement of this publication with any announced changes to national insurance contributions and the Government's announcement of its spending plans (and publication of the Red Book) , both of which were also made at approximately the same time in the parliamentary year. In 1993, Conservative Chancellor Kenneth Clarke combined

4488-530: Was developed to represent the non-tangible value of resources such as national parks. CBA was expanded to address the intangible and tangible benefits of public policies relating to mental illness, substance abuse, college education, and chemical waste. In the US, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 required CBA for regulatory programs; since then, other governments have enacted similar rules. Government guidebooks for

4556-420: Was formalized in subsequent works by Alfred Marshall . Jules Dupuit pioneered this approach by first calculating "the social profitability of a project like the construction of a road or bridge" In an attempt to answer this, Dupuit began to look at the utility users would gain from the project. He determined that the best method of measuring utility is by learning one's willingness to pay for something. By taking

4624-675: Was later introduced by the Department for Transport, Environment and the Regions . This presented balanced cost–benefit results and detailed environmental impact assessments . NATA was first applied to national road schemes in the 1998 Roads Review, and was subsequently rolled out to all transport modes. Maintained and developed by the Department for Transport , it was a cornerstone of UK transport appraisal in 2011. The European Union 's Developing Harmonised European Approaches for Transport Costing and Project Assessment (HEATCO) project, part of

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