IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orinte/v41y2011i4p365-374.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The National Audit Office Uses OR to Assess the Value for Money of Public Services

Author

Listed:
  • Elena Bechberger

    (National Audit Office, London SW1W 9SS, United Kingdom)

  • David C. Lane

    (Management Science Group and Managerial Economics and Strategy Group, Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom)

  • Tom McBride

    (National Audit Office, London SW1W 9SS, United Kingdom)

  • Alec Morton

    (Management Science Group, Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom)

  • Diogo Quintas

    (Centre for Telecommunications Research, King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom)

  • Chin Hei Wong

    (Management Science Group, Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom)

Abstract

Supreme audit institutions (SAIs) have an important role in assessing value for money in the delivery of public services. Assessing value for money necessarily involves assessing counterfactuals: good value for money has been achieved if a policy could not reasonably have been delivered more efficiently, effectively, or economically. Operations research modelling has the potential to help in the assessment of these counterfactuals. However, is such modelling too arcane, complex, and technically burdensome for organisations that, like SAIs, operate in a time- and resource-constrained and politically charged environment? We report on three applications of modelling at the UK's SAI, the National Audit Office, in the context of studies on demand management in tax collection, end-of-life care, and health-care associated infections. In all cases, the models have featured in the audit reports and helped study teams come to a value-for-money judgment. We conclude that OR modelling is indeed a valuable addition to the value-for-money auditor's methodological tool box.

Suggested Citation

  • Elena Bechberger & David C. Lane & Tom McBride & Alec Morton & Diogo Quintas & Chin Hei Wong, 2011. "The National Audit Office Uses OR to Assess the Value for Money of Public Services," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 41(4), pages 365-374, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:41:y:2011:i:4:p:365-374
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.1110.0551
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.1110.0551
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/inte.1110.0551?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ted G. Eschenbach, 1992. "Spiderplots versus Tornado Diagrams for Sensitivity Analysis," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 22(6), pages 40-46, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alex Scharaschkin & Tom McBride, 2016. "Policy analytics and accountability mechanisms: judging the ‘value for money’ of policy implementation," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 236(1), pages 39-56, January.
    2. Alex Scharaschkin & Tom McBride, 2016. "Policy analytics and accountability mechanisms: judging the ‘value for money’ of policy implementation," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 236(1), pages 39-56, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. S. Cucurachi & E. Borgonovo & R. Heijungs, 2016. "A Protocol for the Global Sensitivity Analysis of Impact Assessment Models in Life Cycle Assessment," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(2), pages 357-377, February.
    2. Borgonovo, E., 2010. "Sensitivity analysis with finite changes: An application to modified EOQ models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 200(1), pages 127-138, January.
    3. Lu, Xuefei & Borgonovo, Emanuele, 2023. "Global sensitivity analysis in epidemiological modeling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 304(1), pages 9-24.
    4. van Groenendaal, Willem J. H., 1998. "Estimating NPV variability for deterministic models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 202-213, May.
    5. Emanuele Borgonovo & Gordon B. Hazen & Elmar Plischke, 2016. "A Common Rationale for Global Sensitivity Measures and Their Estimation," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(10), pages 1871-1895, October.
    6. Borgonovo, Emanuele & Tonoli, Fabio, 2014. "Decision-network polynomials and the sensitivity of decision-support models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 239(2), pages 490-503.
    7. Oyarzun, Ricardo & Arumi, Jose & Salgado, Luis & Marino, Miguel, 2007. "Sensitivity analysis and field testing of the RISK-N model in the Central Valley of Chile," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 251-260, February.
    8. Lane, David & Husemann, Elke & Holland, Darren & Khaled, Abdul, 2019. "Understanding foodborne transmission mechanisms for Norovirus: A study for the UK's Food Standards Agency," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 275(2), pages 721-736.
    9. van Groenendaal, W.J.H., 1995. "Estimating net present value variability for deterministic models," Discussion Paper 1995-80, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    10. Borgonovo, Emanuele & Plischke, Elmar, 2016. "Sensitivity analysis: A review of recent advances," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(3), pages 869-887.
    11. Borgonovo, Emanuele & Rabitti, Giovanni, 2023. "Screening: From tornado diagrams to effective dimensions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 304(3), pages 1200-1211.
    12. E. Borgonovo & L. Peccati, 2011. "Managerial insights from service industry models: a new scenario decomposition method," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 185(1), pages 161-179, May.
    13. Kleijnen, Jack P. C., 1995. "Verification and validation of simulation models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 145-162, April.
    14. van Groenendaal, W.J.H. & Kleijnen, J.P.C., 1997. "On the assessment of economic risk : Factorial design versus Monte Carlo methods," Other publications TiSEM fd2a2307-0812-4543-8151-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Borgonovo, E. & Peccati, L., 2011. "Finite change comparative statics for risk-coherent inventories," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1), pages 52-62, May.
    16. Lin, Yan-Hui & Yam, Richard C.M., 2017. "Uncertainty importance measures of dependent transition rates for transient and steady state probabilities," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 402-409.
    17. Borgonovo, Emanuele & Hazen, Gordon B. & Jose, Victor Richmond R. & Plischke, Elmar, 2021. "Probabilistic sensitivity measures as information value," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 289(2), pages 595-610.
    18. Isadora Antoniano‐Villalobos & Emanuele Borgonovo & Sumeda Siriwardena, 2018. "Which Parameters Are Important? Differential Importance Under Uncertainty," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(11), pages 2459-2477, November.
    19. Awad, Mahmoud, 2017. "Analyzing sensitivity measures using moment-matching technique," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 90-99.
    20. Pedersen, Tom Ivar & Liu, Xingheng & Vatn, Jørn, 2023. "Maintenance optimization of a system subject to two-stage degradation, hard failure, and imperfect repair," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:41:y:2011:i:4:p:365-374. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.