January 2011

Us Brits love to talk about the weather but with the recent snow disruption costing the UK economy £1.2 billion a day, according to leading insurance company RSA, maybe the UK government is not talking about it enough!

With transport networks at a halt, roads impassable and employees unable to get to work, the risks associated with the bad weather clearly have a high impact. Should the UK government be investing in better risk management strategies to be greater prepared?

Professor David King, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford and a former UK government chief scientist, thinks the government should be better prepared. On a recent radio 4 show, King raised concerns that during times of cut backs, risk management may be one area that loses out.

He stressed that risk management investments are very real and have very real returns. His example of the £500 million invested in the Thames Barrier saving £30 - 40 billion in direct costs from floods in London perfectly illustrates the 'real value' that an effective risk management strategy can provide.

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