FULL ECONOMIC COSTING
WHAT IS THE FULL ECONOMIC COSTING (FEC) PR0JECT?
The Full Economic Cost of an activity includes:
- Direct costs (staff, equipment, travel, consumables etc.)
- Indirect costs (space, energy, central services, maintenance, academic staff costs, etc.)
- Economic costs (costs of long-term sustainability which include financing, investment & restructuring costs and sustainable estates costs)
The FEC Project involves the design and development of an FEC system/model that will assign and allocate all university costs to the primary activities of the university i.e. Teaching, Research and Other activities. The output of this exercise will be to determine the full cost of such activities across all universities in the sector.
The development of FEC is a key requirement for effective management reporting and decision support. It will facilitate more informed management decision-making by providing more accurate and relevant information; enhance efficiency and support reform by identifying uneconomic/inefficient areas of activity and by enabling changes to practices; support research sustainability by informing the development of an appropriate research overhead rate and pricing decisions (important for EU FP7); provide external stakeholders with accurate, relevant costing information; enable universities to meet the requirements of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) funding model.
FEC Project in SIF I & SIF II Cycles
