Risk Management framework

Summary

All organisations face a wide variety of risks including physical risks to people or property, financial loss, failure of service delivery, information management and damage to the organisation's reputation. Risk for this purpose is defined as "the chance of an event happening and leading to unintended effects which will impair the organisation's ability to achieve its objectives".

Good risk management is a key tool in assisting the organisation to manage uncertainty in order to enable the organisation to better achieve the outcome of its objectives. Risk management is intended to be a planned and systematic approach to the identification, assessment and management of the risks facing the organisation. It is essential that steps are taken to effectively manage those risks. Risk management supports innovative solutions as it carefully considers benefits, alongside the risks, that may occur.

The traditional means of protecting against the more obvious risks has been through insurance. However, there are many risks which cannot be insured against and which must be addressed in different ways. Even in the case of those risks which are insurable, action can be taken to reduce the potential risks with consequent savings of premiums and disruption of work.

The risk management framework aims to:

• clarify responsibilities for identifying and managing risks
• ensure that an appropriate level of risk management is consistently applied across the Council
• increase awareness and use of risk management as a normal element of service management and improvement
• facilitate sharing of experience and good practice across the Council and with other bodies

Document

• Risk Management Framework (PDF) [304KB]