Business case
On this page you'll find a helpful checklist to guide you in forming your business case.
Preparing a business case
Below, you’ll find a checklist of actions to take to help prepare your business case. This is followed up by some additional areas that you should consider when putting your business case together.
Develop a vision
When developing a vision for the service consider overarching aims and objectives of the council. These will need to be deliverable and achievable in the local context. This vision will be used to set the scene for the business case.
Additional questions to consider
- Have you included an evaluation of how the development of reuse services and infrastructure fits within the council’s overarching priorities and policies?
- Have you included a review of how reuse can contribute to council and national targets on waste management, recycling, reuse and Net Zero obligations, taking into account all existing and impending legislation, such as the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill?
- Have you included a review of how reuse expansion sits within the council’s specific waste management policies?
- Have you included a review of the current waste management services carried out by the local authority and how reuse is currently managed within that structure?
- Have you reviewed all current waste management and collection contracts or service level agreements? Whether these are in-house or outsourced, they must be reviewed to understand whether the reuse services proposed can legally be included in existing arrangements or whether contracts need to be amended.
- From this review, have you assessed whether a new, bolt-on, or any separate contracts may need to be specified and tendered for?
- Have you included a review of the current infrastructure, including: collection vehicle types; suitability for collections and capacity on rounds; transfer station arrangements and capacity (often required for bulking-up and movement of wastes in larger rural areas to central points); and the layout and capacity at HWRCs? This final review must also include an assessment of the requirement for changing the layout of sites and any engineering works.
- Have you included an assessment of the required and advantageous potential of a multidepartment approach? It is likely that reuse projects will be most effectively realized when driven by a project group that includes a cross-section of skills and experience both internally and externally.
- Have you engaged with a wide range of potential reuse partners, potential contractors, and the various outlets and beneficiary organisations for reuse?
- Have you engaged with the wider community and all relevant stakeholders? Have their opinions been taken into account in the Business Case?
- What targets have been established with respect to socioeconomic impacts, reuse figures, waste prevention, and waste diversion? Are there any other targets you want to include?
