Cost-Benefit Analysis - Government Agency

Youth Mental Health Project

Seeing the opportunity

A main objective of this Government research unit when engaging us was to increase the use of evidence to improve the quality of decisions made in the social sector.

The agency first planned a three phase review of the Prime Minister’s Youth Mental Health Project (YMHP). PwC Consulting was brought on board to carry out a case study-based outcome evaluation, and a cost benefit analysis, of the project.

The YMHP attempts to prioritise the mental health and wellbeing of New Zealand youth by offering a package of initiatives designed to reach young people through key settings: in their communities, schools, health services, families and online.

Our approach

We recognised that the economic analysis had to include content from the casual chains and linkages between initiative activities and long-term social and economic outcomes. It had to be accurate and provide results that feed into public monetary outcomes, private monetary outcomes, and quality of life outcomes. Outcome-based evaluation provides reliable quantitative data on how projects influence New Zealand’s youth individually and the impacts to the wider economy in some areas.

Our Economics Team prepared a standalone cost-benefit analysis and qualitative evaluation. This approach required the collection and analysis of a substantial body of research, literature and data to support our conclusions.

Delivering results

We provided a detailed economic analysis of the project’s value generation and key drivers, while also making recommendations in light of key findings on the project’s future and how to generate optimal value through explanations, diagrams, tables and graphs.

While the evaluation had an ultimate purpose of informing a cost-benefit analysis for the overall project, the size and breadth of the research base ensures that it is also useful knowledge outside the realms of finance and economics. This information could be used to assess an initiative or intervention without necessarily considering its economic effectiveness. Similarly, the research used to assign monetary values to the youth mental health outcomes could have wider applications beyond the initiatives included in this particular project.