Meeting documents

            Meeting: Corporate Scrutiny Sub-Committee (County Hall, Durham - Committee Room 2 - 27/11/2006 10:00:00 AM)

                  Item: A4 Corporate Risk Management - Report of the Quarter Period July-September 2006

Scrutiny Sub-Committee for Corporate Management Issues

Purpose of Report

1. Purpose of Report

The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the work carried out by the Corporate Risk Manager and the Corporate Risk Management Group during the quarter period July - September 2006, and highlights the current status of risk across the Council. As well as good management practice, this report also positively responds to a Key Line of Enquiry in Use of Resources under the Comprehensive Performance Assessment. The report is broken down into a summary in paragraphs 2 to 5, focusing on the current major risks to the Council and external changes on the horizon which may lead to potential new risks. Detail supporting this summary is to be found in the attached Appendices 3 to 6.

2. Current Status of Risks to the Council

Risks are assessed and managed at both a service and corporate level. Throughout this report, both in the summary and the Appendices, all risks are reported as Net Risk, which is based on an assessment of the impact and likelihood of the risk occurring with existing controls in place. At the end of September 2006, the major risks being managed were:

• Ineffective commissioning of adult social care services leading to failure to release resources to invest in promoting independence and developing preventative services.
  
• Poor health of workforce, for example resulting from work related stress, which impacts in high levels of staff absence and turnover and less effective and efficient working.
  
• Failure to deliver the Building Schools for the Future programme within time and budget, with minimal disruption to service delivery.
  
• Failure to effectively implement the proposed Waste Management Contract. As well as reputational damage, the financial implications may require funding to be diverted from other Council budgets or additional revenue.
  
• Lighting column collapse. Although not a strategic risk, management in the Environment service consider that this risk will have a catastrophic impact if it materialises, such as injury or loss of life, and they consider that there is a high likelihood that the risk may occur.
  
• Increasing fuel and energy costs, and their financial implications for the Council. For example, the increased cost to the Council for 2006-07 is estimated at up to £3 million. The profile of this risk is raised due to the likelihood that these costs will continue to increase in the foreseeable future.
  
• The failure to improve educational attainment of children in public care. Although management consider that they have adequate controls in place to significantly reduce the likelihood that this risk will occur, this is still considered a significant risk.
  
  3. Emerging risks
  
• In this quarter, the major item which emerged as raising a potential risk was the Bournewood Judgement. This relates to service users who at the time of admission, lacked the capacity to consent or object to residential or nursing care, and where this involved a restriction of liberty or informal detention. The potential risk for the Council is litigation in the event of a challenge regarding the admission of the service user.
  
• In the last quarter, the identified emerging risks was the Lyons Enquiry on local government. The potential risks surrounding this are being monitored.
  
  4. Changes to major risks in this quarter
  
• Services will be reviewing their risks in October and November, a process which takes place every six months. Consequently, in the next quarterly report, we will be able to highlight more clearly whether actions to mitigate major risks are being implemented, and that the level of risk exposure is reducing.
  
• The following, which focuses on the risk of major business disruption, demonstrates that actions are being implemented to reduce major risks to the Council. A comprehensive Business Impact Analysis exercise has been undertaken across all Services, and work is underway to update and improve business continuity plans. As well as positively responding to the Comprehensive Performance Assessment, and meeting statutory requirements, this work will reduce to a more manageable level both the impact of an incident and the likelihood of it critically affecting service delivery.
  
• A revised draft Strategic Risk Register has now been prepared by the Corporate Risk Management Group, and will be submitted to the Corporate Management Team (CMT) for final review and approval. A number of new corporate strategic risks have been identified, compared to the existing Strategic Risk Register in place, such as the impact of climate change and increasing issues around adult care.
  
  5. Progress this Quarter
  
• A process to ensure effective assessment and reporting of risks associated with Key Decisions has been approved by the Corporate Management Team and Cabinet, and is now being applied to reports on a pilot basis, working in conjunction with the Acting Director of Corporate Services.
  
• Internal risk management performance indicators have been developed, and data is being collected to establish their adequacy and effectiveness in measuring performance.
  
• The risk management training plan for 2006-07 has been approved and both the content and timetable of the training is currently being agreed with the training providers.
  
• The major partnerships in the Council have now been recorded on the Partnership Register. As part of the review of governance arrangements, these partnerships have been risk assessed using the guidance provided by corporate risk management.
  
  6. In the next Quarter
  
  Moving forward, we are proposing that Chief Officers should agree their Service Risk Register with the Cabinet Member responsible for their Portfolio Service.
  
  7. Recommendation
  
  Members are requested to note this report.
  

This table reports the top 15 Net Risks as at 30 September 2006, extracted from the strategic risk register managed by Corporate Management Team, and the risk registers managed by each Service. These risks have both a high impact and are considered at least possible to occur with the existing controls in place. Details for each of these risks are included in Appendix 4.

Catastrophic

?

Major

IMPACT

Moderate

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 risk management.pdf;
 06-07 - Quarterly Report - Quarter 2 - O&S - Update.pdf