Untitled-29

164 Financial Management

the public involved the sampling process to really

help the decision maker the

population sampled must

understand the issue involved

Voting It is the most comprehensive

way of establishing the views

and wishes of a particular

population

Not appropriate for all projects

particularly small ones.

Expensive and slow to arrange.

Unless some form of

compulsion is used not

everyone will vote. Not

necessarily binding on either

party involved

If the result is clear it gives the

decision maker positive

guidance on the action the

population consider should be

taken. If the verdict is marginal

the issue is not efficiently

resolved for the decision

maker

There are four methods for assessing acceptability of socio-political factors:

The conclusions that can be made about the problems of assessing socio-political factors

are:

1. The socio-political factors related to complex decisions can be evaluated by carefully
   designed surveys.


2. Changes in opinion that take place over a period as short as two years can be
   detected by conventional survey methods.


3. Variations in views can be detected over a relatively small geographical area.


4. For an effective survey to be made the nature of the risk must be explained to the
   population being surveyed.


5. A sample opinion survey does not represent any kind of commitment by the people
   being surveyed, whereas voting procedures may be binding.


6. For the decision maker considering a major public project there may be considerable
   uncertainty about the viability of the assessment of public acceptability unless it is
   based on the results of a voting procedure.


7. For small non-conventional projects' surveys of the public's view of the acceptability
   of a proposal may not be justified.