The Council is committed to the management of risks within its control in order to safeguard employees and service users, protect assets, preserve and enhance service delivery to its population and maintain effective stewardship of funds.
Aims and Objectives
The aims of the Council are:
o Embedding risk management into the culture of the Authority;
o Raising awareness of the need for Risk Management by all those connected with the delivery of services (including Partners etc.);
o Enabling the Authority to anticipate and respond to changing social, environmental and legislative conditions;
o Minimising the risk of injury, damage, loss and inconvenience to residents, staff, service users, assets etc arising from or connected with the delivery of the Council's services;
o Maximising the rewards that can be gained through risk management;
o Maintaining a robust framework of procedures for identification, analysis, control and management of risk and the reporting and recording of events based on best practice;
o Minimising the cost of adverse risk.
These aims will be achieved by the following objectives:
o Establishing clear accountabilities, roles and reporting lines across all services and departments;
o Acquiring, developing and maintaining the necessary skills and expertise in risk management;
o Providing for risk assessment in all decision-making processes of the Authority;
o Developing and maintaining a Corporate Risk Register to manage the ranking of risks and to ensure Managers and employees at all levels actively participate in this process;
o Developing a resource allocation framework to allocate resources to previously identified priority risk areas;
o Ensuring appropriate consideration of risk within all reviews of service performance and improvement plans;
o Developing arrangements to measure performance of Risk Management activities against the aims and objectives;
o Making all partners and other providers aware of the Council's expectations on risk, both generally as set out in the Risk Management Handbook and where necessary in particular areas of service delivery;
o Ensuring the Council has access to "best practice" through association with bodies such as ALARM and other local authority networks;
o Reducing duplication between departments by managing overlapping risks, whilst ensuring gaps are identified and managed.
Guiding Principles
To fulfil the key risk management objectives the Council will:
o Continue to develop and improve processes, procedures and approach to risk management;
o Secure the commitment of management at all levels to promote risk management and provide the necessary leadership and direction;
o Develop a partnership culture that secures the involvement and participation of all services in the risk management process;
o Adopt agreed risk management standards throughout the Council which are audited and monitored;
o Ensure that the routine and systematic identification, assessment and control of risk is an integral part of all work activities;
o Have in place effective systems of communication to ensure that all Council employees are informed about risk management;
o Provide the necessary resources, facilities, information and training to meet these objectives.
