All RIA practicioners know that one of the most difficult steps in the exercise is the valuation of impacts, where statistics are not always available. That is why any help is welcome. One way of facilitating the production of figures is to support the calculations and the presentation of results, and such is the purpose of a new tool recently uploaded by the Department of Innovation and Business, the Impact Assessment Calculator, which is intended to "help policy officials to calculate the figures needed for their impact assessment. The calculator automatically generates the key figures needed for the impact assessment summary pages, using the profile of costs and benefits for each option." The Excell spreadsheet comes with instructions and a sheet for calculating each option; the figures are collected in an overview that can be copied into the RIA summary pages. The calculator also takes care of discounting and other financial operations. Though the currency quoted is the pound sterling, it seems the software could be used in any country, perhaps with a few adaptations.
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