Risk management strategy

Risk management guidance

Every aspect of our work involves some level of risk.  Policy making, decision making, financial management and day to day delivery of services, all involve risk.  We do not advocate that all risk is removed from our work. Instead we need to be ‘risk aware’ – balancing quality, cost, and risk in our work.  We need to take steps to ensure that the identified risk is kept within acceptable parameters - with ‘no surprises’.

Risk management also ensures that we maintain our public sector ethos and keep an ethical mindset.  ‘How we do it’ is as important as ‘what we do’ when making decisions within risk management.  Our risk management arrangements enable us to manage uncertainty in a systematic way at all levels of our business:

Strategic

Future decisions of the business

Change

Turning strategy into action including programme and change management

Operational

Day-to-day operations including:

  • people
  • customer experience
  • processes
  • information security
  • finance
  • business continuity

A formal risk assessment – producing a risk register that will be monitored and recorded on our risk management software, Sharp Cloud, is required for all services, in particular:

  • strategic risks
  • key projects and programmes including those through the transformation programme and determined by our corporate plan and project management guidance
  • new service strategies that have a greater impact on people, finance, and the council