Risk management and business continuity

Risk management

“Risk management is the process of identifying risks, evaluating their potential consequences and determining and implementing the most effective way of controlling and monitoring them. The objective of the process is to enable objectives to be achieved in the optimum way and to control negative factors or risks (e.g. loss of reputation) which could impact on an organisation’s success.”
(ALARM & District Audit)

Shropshire Council has set itself 4 strategic objectives. In order to meet these objectives, and in line with the requirements of Corporate Governance, the Council is committed to demonstrating a robust and integrated risk management programme.

Shropshire Council has a wide range of operational level risk management in place within all services, ensuring that day to day risks to staff and the public are effectively managed. In addition to this, a corporate risk profiling exercise has been undertaken which identified 12 key risks to the council as a whole. Work is now well underway to address these risks, coordinated by the Risk Management Officer and the strategic level Risk Management Group, chaired by the Director of Resources. At directorate level, risk control frameworks are being rolled out which record the operational risks and the control measures in place.

Shropshire Council has committed to a Risk Management Strategy - use the contact button to request a copy.

Business continuity management

Business continuity management can be defined as “the development, implementation and maintenance of an action orientated process for responding to any emergency, managing the crisis and recovering the delivery of services”

Business continuity management (BCM) has been identified as an essential element of the risk management process described above, ensuring that Shropshire Council has implemented sufficient measures to reduce the effects of a major incident affecting service delivery. To meet this need the council has developed a BCM programme, the specific aims of which are to:

• Continue to meet our commitments to the public by minimising the impact of any event that could lead to an inability to deliver services to the public from Shirehall.
• Develop practicable and usable plans in the event that Shirehall is unavailable.
• To minimise the financial loss of an interruption of services.
• To enable resilience and recovery strategies (leading to targeted resource requirements) to be developed to meet recovery requirements despite disruption to infrastructure.
• Ensure that the Council takes appropriate actions to demonstrate adherence to Best Value and meet risk management assessment criteria for the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) process.

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