On lifetime costs and targeting: effects of current case management practice on future resource commitments with entropic assumptions about productivities

<p>This paper suggests one way at looking at an important practical problem. The practical problem is one that will face those responsible for targeting policy and the case managers applying it: what are the expected lifetime costs and benefits of alternative allocations to a case at first assessment and at review six months later. Then it provides some quantitative evidence about cost, one of the considerations in the argument, as this would have been for a broadly representative cohort of persons who first received services in the mid-1980s. (We are also making some quantitive estimates for the benefit element, and will report these separately).