Step by Step Appraisal Guidance
| 2.2 |
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Step Two |
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Establish the Need For Expenditure |
| 2.2.1 |
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Appraisals should establish that expenditure is needed. The proposed service provision or financial assistance needs to be justified, and it should be established that the chosen level of service or assistance is appropriate. |
| 2.2.2 |
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Business needs should be reviewed. The need to continue service provision should not be taken for granted. In some cases it may be appropriate to consider scaling down provision or ceasing it altogether. |
| 2.2.3 |
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Where appropriate, details should be given of deficiencies in current services, or in the assets or other resources used to deliver them. |
| 2.2.4 |
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Relevant projections of the future nature and levels of demand for services over time should be provided, suitably quantified. For example, projections of school enrolments, hospital caseloads, road traffic growth, numbers of trainee places required. These future projections should be set in context by providing historical evidence of the development of need e.g. figures for the past 3 to 5 years. |
| 2.2.5 |
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Projections of need or demand should be quantified and details of supporting calculations and assumptions should be provided. |
| 2.2.6 |
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The need for a project is related to its potential benefits but these should normally be treated separately, i.e. need should be dealt with at Step 2 and benefits should be handled at Steps 5 and/or Step 7. A description of potential benefits does not usually amount to a justification of the need for a project. It is acknowledged that some projects are "benefits-driven" but even then it is usually possible to distinguish the need or demand for a particular service from the potential benefits of particular options. |
| 2.2.7 |
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In the case of financial assistance to the private, voluntary or community sectors, it is essential to establish that the Additionality criterion is satisfied. This is explained in Section 4.3 below. |
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