Agenda Item 6

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

Report

1 The Committee received a report on the County Council's risk management arrangements on 15 July 2008 and requested that further reports were to be received on an annual basis.

2 The County Council's risk management programme aims to deliver improvements to the capacity of the Council to handle risk effectively. It also provides a platform that will enable it to demonstrate the contribution risk management makes to its handling of risk and achieving of outcomes.

3 A certain amount of risk taking is both inevitable and essential if the County Council is to achieve its objectives. The way that the County Council manages the many risks facing it ultimately contributes towards the implementation of its business plan and the achievement of its priorities.

4 The aim of the County Council's risk management process is; "No surprises". To increase the level of certainty in the County Council's activities by thinking and planning ahead to deal with risks in advance.

5 A key purpose of the County Council's risk management arrangements is to provide assurance to Members that the County Council is effectively managing its key business risks. In order to achieve this it maintains robust risk management arrangements that have adopted best practice from the private and public sector, nationally and internationally. These arrangements are subject to review by the Audit Commission as part of the Use of Resources assessment, and from 2009, as part of the Comprehensive Area Assessment.

6 Audit Commission Use of Resources Assessment

6.1 The Use of Resources Report published in December 2008 by the Audit Commission, assessed the County Council's arrangements for managing its business risks at level 4, this was an improvement from level 3 in 2007. This is the highest level available and Hampshire County Council is one of the very few English County Councils to achieve this level of performance.

6.2 The Audit Commission declared that, "the Council is performing strongly in managing its significant risks".

6.3 It highlighted the risk management arrangements for the Local Area Agreement, that had been developed by the County Council, as notable best practice.

7 Measuring Risk Management Performance

7.1 The County Council has been using a performance management framework for its risk management activities based on an EFQM model for the past three years. It has been used to drive improvement both at Departmental and Corporate levels.

8 The following diagram shows the aggregated performance levels for the Council and demonstrates the significant progress that has been made, especially in the last year. It supports the Audit Commission's view that the current performance is equivalent to level four ("performing strongly") in the Use of Resources assessment.

9 Annual Review of Departmental Risk Registers

9.1 The County Council has a corporate process through which it identifies, assesses and manages the risks to the services it provides. Departments are required to review their risks on an annual basis and report any findings to their respective Departmental Management Teams.

9.2 All Departments have provided evidence that their key business risks have been reviewed and the findings from those reviews have been reported to their respective management teams. Copies of those reports have been provided to the Corporate Risk Manager. The Risk Management Board confirms that the agreed process for reviewing and reporting on risks has been complied with.

9.3 The risk registers are dynamic documents, with new risks being identified, risks increasing in intensity and other risks dropping in importance as circumstance and business priorities change and new mitigation measures are implemented.

9.4 Evidence from the reports provided by Departments show that considerable changes have been made to departmental risk registers to ensure that they reflect their key business risks.

9.5 The reports also provide a high level of assurance that appropriate mitigation measures are in place to handle business risks, and where appropriate, additional control measures are either planned or being implemented. In addition, they provide assurance that the financial impacts of risk are being considered by departmental management teams, and where appropriate, influence financial resource allocation.

9.6 Good progress is being made to map the County Council's Strategic Risk Register to mitigation actions taken at departmental level.

9.7 The County Council's risk management arrangements have been linked to its performance management framework, "Delivering Success", with the County Council using a risk based performance management approach and arrangements in development to produce improved information from the Strategic Risk Register on a quarterly basis to the Corporate Performance and Efficiency Group.

10 Conclusion

10.1 Significant improvements have been made in the County Council's risk management arrangements since the report presented in 2008. However, the County Council recognises that improved performance is only part of the story. Its risk management activities need to directly contribute to the delivery of better outcomes.

10.2 The Council is clear that it wants its risk management framework "to deliver the capacity across the organisation to be more confident with risk so that we can use it to deliver the outcomes we want - even if this means taking more managed risk".

10.3 A revised Risk and Safety Executive Group is therefore concentrating on the four key elements of that outcome statement and on those actions that will raise:

· Our Capacity to manage risk

· Our Confidence in handling risk

· Managing the risks to Outcome Delivery

· Supporting considered Risk Taking.

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IMPACT ASSESSMENTS:

Equalities Impact Assessment:

N/A

Impact on Crime and Disorder:

N/A

Climate Change:

How does what is being proposed impact on our carbon footprint / energy consumption?

N/A

How does what is being proposed consider the need to adapt to climate change, and be resilient to its longer term impacts?

N/A