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liabilities.
The coalition government has introduced changes to
reshape risk management practices across local government.
The emphasis on breaking up public monopolies and
transferring power away from central government allows
local government to innovate and develop new solutions
to past issues, drawing on the professional judgement
of local government officers. A key challenge involves
providing officers with relevant information so they
have an appropriate evidence base to take informed risk
management decisions and to partake in measured risk
taking, whereby well-evidenced risks are assessed on their
probability and consequences. Under these conditions, local
authorities may reform their risk management approaches
by passing on the responsibility for some risks through
contracts, insurance or delegation (to other bodies or
individuals); and by engaging with new actors so they
understand the challenges these risks present, as well as
how to take precautionary and preventative action in order
to protect them from harm. This seems to offer support
to individuals who can assume greater responsibility and
proactively manage their interests, rather than relying on
state intervention. But it also recognizes that certain risks
require onward scrutiny and oversight, because they are too
important to devolve.
National registers, risks and futures
A natural outcome of pan-government risk analysis has
been a capacity to compare and contrast many different
types of risk that have national strategic significance.
What distinguishes one risk or opportunity from another
is its character 43, 44 : not only its magnitude, dimensions
and significance, but also the means by which it might be
realised, how likely it is to come to fruition, the individual
mechanisms by which this might occur, the knock-on
consequences that may emerge, and how it is understood
and managed by those that engage with it 45 . Emerging
naturally from a more joined-up, pan-government approach
to risk management, the UK Civil Contingencies Secretariat,
was established in 2001 as the Cabinet Office department
responsible for emergency planning in the United Kingdom.
The role of the secretariat is to ensure the United
Kingdom’s resilience against disruptive challenge. By working
with others, it aims to anticipate, assess and prevent risks; to
prepare and respond in the event of major threats; and then
recover from risks that are realized.
Since 2010, the emphasis of government’s risk
management has been on national resilience — a focus on
the systemic features essential to ensuring society is robust
to shock and able to recover quickly when adverse events
occur. The National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies
and the National Security Strategy set out government
thinking and embody a strategic perspective 46, 47 . In compiling
these registers, frameworks for analysing and presenting
strategic risks adopted within business settings 48 have been
deployed across government. Notwithstanding the debates
on method 49,50, 51 , one cannot argue with the impact these
national risk analyses are having in shaping policy discussions
on the effectiveness of public risk management 52 ; the societal
appetite for the current levels of residual risk; and on how
national risks might evolve under a variety of possible
futures.
Looking to the far horizon 53 is now widely recognised as a
reserved responsibility of government with respect to public
risk management. Recent reviews of capability have called
for a centrally-coordinated approach to horizon-scanning
and foresight activity that, in some ways, mirrors the policy
initiatives on risk of the late 1990s discussed above. This
can only lead to a maturing capability and lend support to a
long held view that governments must look beyond fiveyear
terms to ensure genuine preparedness and resilience in
society’s ability to meet the intergenerational and existential
challenges ahead 54 (see Chapters 2 and 10).
TABLE 1
Simplified account of local authority
responsibilities within England 42
Education
Highways
Transport
planning
Passenger
transport
Social services
Housing
Libraries
Leisure and
recreation
Environmental
health
Waste
collection
Waste disposal
Planning
application
Strategic
planning
Police
Fire
Met. areas Shire areas London
Single purpose
MD
SC/UA
SD/UA
Single purpose
City
LB
GLA
MD = metropolitan district; SC = shire county; SD = shire district;
UA = unitary authority; LB = London borough;
GLA = Greater London Authority
Source: Local Government Financial Statistics, England, CLG