Develop budgets and control costs

The purpose of this competency is to achieve the goals of budgeting and cost control, i.e. to:

determine the income and expenditure profiles for the work;
develop budgets and align with funding;
implement systems to manage income and expenditure.

Performance criteria

You must be able to:

refine cost estimates and allocate costs to budgets
calculate values for contingency and management reserves
set up and manage cost control systems
co-ordinate expenditure with the availability of funds
maintain budget and cost control documentation
assure the quality of budgets and cost control

Cost control systems must reflect the scale and complexity of the work.

On programmes, portfolios and larger projects there will be procedures for setting budgets for component parts and consolidating actual costs across those component parts.

In a portfolio there may be a scheme of delegation for the approval of budgets.

Therefore, multiple competencies may have to be developed in this area to accommodate the responsibility and authority of different roles within the system.

Knowledge and understanding

You need to know and understand:

the principles and goals of budgeting and cost control
responsibilities for budgeting and cost control
the context of the work and its impact on budgets and cost control systems
a procedure for developing budgets and controlling costs
how to estimate and operate contingency and management reserves
cost attributes and payment types
the purpose and content of budgetary and cost control documentation
how assurance applies to budgeting and cost control

Please consider allowing cookies to be able to share this page on social media sites.