Case 6 A London Borough Topic: Public sector, activity analysis, value added Introduction A new department was set up in November 2002 to promote economic development and regeneration in the Borough. The department’s staff manage partnership and corporate initiatives, provide information and advice to businesses and developers and contribute to local policy in the Borough. Activity Based Costing After 6 months in operation the department’s manager Clara Bird decided that the key activities need to be analysed to identify opportunities for improving service delivery. Clara believes a ‘cost sampling’ or snapshot’ approach is required to identify key activities and their costs. This technique will help the department to develop estimates of how much time is devoted to different activities and then by using an average hourly rate for all staff Clara will be able to estimate the total annual cost of an activity. The decision to use an average hourly rate for all staff will save time with the first ‘cost sampling