The Allocation of Effort, Costs and Risks

Effort and Costs

Any project will require investment by participating organisations. It may also impose new responsibilities on people affected by the project. Where a project does, or may, give rise to personal effort and costs to individuals, the scope of the PIA needs to be sufficiently broad to encompass them.

For example, a project in the area of 'identity authentication' and 'identity management' may impose responsibilities on people to acquire new documents or re-locate existing copies of documents, to carry the documents, and to securely store them so that they can be presented in the future. The obligations may extend to making appointments, taking time out of other activities including work, travelling to a designated location, and queuing. The person may then be subjected to one or more stressful interviews, and to bureaucratic rules that take little account of that person's particular circumstances. If they are unable to comply, people may be forced to repeat the whole process, or to depend on an impersonal bureaucracy making an exception.

People may have to bear financial costs such as registration fees or travel, may have to forego income, and may have to undertake tasks. Some of the costs and some of the efforts may have been transferred from the organisations they are dealing with, as occurs where individuals are required to capture data directly into the organisation's data processing system.

In some cases, people may be precluded from some forms of rights or entitlements, or denied some kinds of services, during the period it takes them to succeed in complying with the requirements. The preclusion or denial may even be permanent.

There may be a public perception that effort and costs are being imposed on people, whether or not it is actually the case.

Risks

People are also likely to be concerned about who bears what risks, both of a financial nature, and of a service-denial nature. Where a project embodies risks of these kinds, the scope of the PIA needs to be sufficiently broad to encompass them.

Both individuals who are subject to a scheme and organisations participating in it are likely to be concerned that risks and contingent liabilities are equitably distributed rather than imposed on the people or organisations with the least power.

There may be a public perception that risks are being borne by individuals, whether or not it is actually the case.