Historic England has noted that HM Treasury has released a revised Green Book guidance for economic appraisal. The Green Book, is a powerful document used to guide economic appraisals and investment in the UK. For example, all businesses cases and DfTs infrastructure investment nationally must comply with the Green Book.
There is a significant shift in the language and emphasis of the Green Book – guidance: economic appraisal is about “how government can improve social welfare or wellbeing, referred to in the Green Book as social value”. In the previous Green Book, the word wellbeing did not occur even once. Wellbeing is now embedded into the guidance emphasising that wellbeing needs to be considered when making policy decisions. Indeed this shift in language is clear throughout the document, for example, cost benefit analysis is now termed “Social Cost Benefit Analysis”.