This picture was developed in 2006 to explain to a group of children’s rights advocacy NPOs and lawyers the importance of costing policy proposals as a key strategy in persuading government to take the policies on board and finance them in the budget. The green block describes where we see ourselves within the process of advocating for the interests of children and other vulnerable groups.
Cornerstone has subsequently used this picture as an introductory slide in our training courses on policy costing.
Cornerstone uses this picture in our presentations of costing policy to emphasise that anyone who can do simple multiplication can do costing, because it simply involves using this equation to estimate total progamme costs – like working out a budget for a party.
We note that this equation is used in many different forms to estimate the cost of the many layers and types of activities that make up a government programme.
This picture illustrates the processes and roles that are typically involved in a policy costing project.
This picture appeared in:
- Barberton, C. 2006 ‘The Cost of the Children’s Bill – Estimates of the cost to Government of the services envisaged by the Comprehensive Children’s Bill for the period 2005 to 2010’. Report for the national Department of Social Development.
This picture illustrates the typical policy development process and highlights the different types of cost analysis that should ideally inform each step in the process. The main point of the picture was to highlight that cost effectiveness analysis of implementation options often reveals information that needs to be feedback (big red arrow) into strategic planning.
This picture first appeared in:
- Shall, A., Barberton, C. and Ajam, T., (2000), 'Costing legislation: a review of international and local practices with a view to developing recommendations for a systemic approach within the Department of Justice', Research Monograph No. 14, Applied Fiscal Research Centre (AFReC), University of Cape Town, Cape Town.
When embarking on a policy costing project the first step is to gain a thorough understanding of the institutions and activities involved in the delivering the policy. We find that it is useful, possibly even essential, to draw a process model / map of the programme to be costed. The act of drawing such a model tests ones understanding of the activities involved and the relationships between service demand, processes and inputs.
This picture shows the first process model / map we developed in 1999. It shows the different stages in the child justice system that the Child Justice Bill proposed putting in place. This process model underpins the structure of the child justice bill costing model.
This picture appears in:
- Barberton, C. with Stuart, J., 1999. "Costing the Implementation of the Child Justice Bill and Developing a Strategy for Implementation" Research Monograph Series No. 14 of the Applied Fiscal Research Centre, UCT, Cape Town.
- Barberton, C. with Stuart, J., 2001. "Re-Costing the Child Justice Bill - updating the original costing taking into consideration changes made to the bill“. A research paper produced for South African Government, with the support of the UNDP, the CICP and UNOPS.
www.unicef.org/tdad/southafricarecostingchildjusticebill01.pdf
This picture shows the institutional arrangements in South Africa for managing sexual assault and rape cases. This picture underpins the structure of the costing model of the Thuthuzela system.
This picture appears in:
- Barberton, C. and Grieve, A. 2004. ‘An investigation into the cost, management and ways of improving the Thuthuzela System’. Project for the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.
This picture shows the structure of the costing model that Cornerstone developed to cost the nutrition services and interventions for children up to five years old in South Africa. This picture highlights the linkages across the sheets in the costing model, which hopefully makes it easier to follow the logic of the methodology.
