The Risk Programme: OBJECTIVES, OUTCOMES, BENEFITS 

Overall objectives

Areas of action

Key priorities

Further objectives and outcomes

Benefits

OVERALL OBJECTIVES

Central objectives of the risk programme are to enable confident decision taking on risk and innovation, reduce waste and inefficiency, and initiate processes based on continuous improvement that will lead to fewer unanticipated problems and crises that may undermine confidence and trust. Subsequently, and through enhanced communication about risks to the public, government would be in a better position to manage impacts of unexpected events and ensure higher levels of safety and confidence.

Strategic goals of the programme of change include:

• Fewer surprises to the public and government;
• Better managed impact of unexpected events;
• Higher levels of safety and confidence;
• Fewer direct costs resulting from failure to anticipate risks;
• Better understanding of risks and trade-offs (both by the public and government);
• Better balance of risk and opportunity; and
• Greater clarity of responsibilities and ways to best manage risks.

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AREAS OF ACTION

In the Strategy Unit report, action is recommended in the following areas:

• Handling risk should be firmly embedded in government’s policy making, planning and delivery;
• Government's capacity to handle strategic risks should be enhanced;
• Risk handling should be supported by good practice, guidance and skills development;
• Departments and agencies should make earning and maintaining public trust a priority when dealing with risks to the public; and
• Ministers and senior officials should take a clear lead in improving risk handling.

KEY PRIORITIES

Key priorities for improving government’s performance include:

Improving capacity to handle risk;

Improving communication about risk to the public; and

Ensuring effective leadership and culture change

Improving capacity to handle risk

Every aspect of government's work involves some risk: policymaking and decision taking; action and implementation; regulation and spending. Government needs to develop its capacity to handle risk by:

• Ensuring decisions take account of risks; 
• Firmly establishing risk management techniques;
• Organising to manage risk;
• Developing skills; and
• Ensuring quality.

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Improving communication about risk to the public

Citizens face many day-to-day risks to their health, property and well being. Many of these are accepted willingly, and with a fair amount of understanding. Others can be prevented or contained through regulation or other measures such as public healthcare. But many risks are by their nature hard to understand, and in some cases the evidence on their gravity, and their interaction with other kinds of risk, is constantly changing. Government’s most important role in this area is to ensure that the right people have balanced information, at the right time and in a user-friendly form, to decide how best to control their exposure to the risk or judge the action that government is taking on their behalf. For government to be able to discharge this responsibility it is vital that it is trusted. As recent examples such as BSE and MMR have demonstrated this depends in turn on a track record of openness and reliability.  Government needs to work closely with the media, who are often government’s main channel of communication with the public on risk issues, to ensure accurate and impartial coverage.

Trust is more likely to be strong when:

• Institutions are clear about their objectives and values;
• There is openness and transparency around decisions;
• Decisions are clearly grounded in evidence;
• Public values and concerns are taken account of in making decisions;
• Sufficient information is provided to allow individuals to take balanced judgements; and
• Mistakes are quickly acknowledged and acted on.

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In addition to avoiding mistakes, government’s approach to handling risks to the public needs to become:

• More open, particularly in cases of uncertainty;
• More transparent about the processes it has used to reach its decisions; and
• More participative, by involving stakeholders and the wider public at an earlier stage in the decision process

Ensuring effective leadership and culture change

A sharper focus on risk needs to be led from the top by Ministers and Permanent Secretaries. The Strategy Unit report on risk identifies a number of roles for top management:

• Driving implementation of the improvements in risk management set out in the report;
• Taking key judgements and providing clear direction;
• Defining the appetite for taking on further risk;
• Supporting innovation;
• Ensuring clear accountability for managing risks; and
• Ensuring that managers are equipped with skills, guidance and other tools.

FURTHER OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES

Further and more specific – and timed - objectives and outcomes are set out for the Implementation Steering Group, the departmental risk improvement managers, the strand leaders, the Risk Support Team and other government units and entities.

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BENEFITS

In the longer term, the benefits across government of measures to improve risk management are expected to more than cover the costs.

The financial benefits alone of a new approach to risk management could be vast, for example by:

• Avoiding or reducing the scale of crises (the total direct cost of the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak to the public and private sector is estimated at over £8bn)
• Reducing the likelihood of project and programme failure (e.g. Benefits Payment Card, £127m; passport computer system £12.6m)
• Reducing the cost and time taken in dealing with hostile media campaigns (e.g. MMR)
• Reducing the scale of losses arising from e.g. property and liability risks (a feasibility study has estimated a potential saving of up to £640m pa from introducing captive insurance, risk-pooling arrangements).
• The OGC Gateway process, involving risk assessments, to be applied to projects is expected to save £500m a year. The financial benefits of better risk management will accrue jointly to departments and the contingency reserve.

In addition there are likely to be significant non-financial benefits, including:

• Increased reassurance for the public;
• Increased ability for the public and government to make appropriate choices in the face of uncertainty; and
• Increased likelihood of achieving policy outcomes, quickly and fully, especially where these require the support of the public to be effective (e.g. vaccination).

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