Multi-criteria analysis: a manual

This manual was commissioned by the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions in 2000 and remains, in 2009, the principal current central government guidance on the application of multi-criteria analysis (MCA) techniques. Since 2000 it has become more widely recognised in government that, where quantities can be valued in monetary terms, MCA is not a substitute for cost-benefit analysis, but it may be a complement; and that MCA techniques are diverse in both the kinds of problem that they address (for example prioritisation of programmes as well as single option selection) and in the techniques that they employ, ranging from decision conferencing to less resource intensive processes.