Encouraging Risk Management with interactive intuitive system
Problem
The whole of Local Government is currently feeling the impact of austerity measures and ongoing change so an effective risk management framework is important to help manage this. Essex County Council required a systematic and logical process of managing business risks within a comprehensive framework, to ensure risks are managed effectively, efficiently and coherently across the organisation.
Solution
In 2007, after significant research into risk management solutions, Essex County Council implemented JCAD Risk. This offered a central system where risks could be stored, tracked and accessed by numerous different personnel. At the time it helped to change management thinking, complemented existing training and celebrated the benefits of risk management across a large and complex organisation.
Having used the Risk system for eight years, Essex County Council decided to take advantage of the upgrade to JCAD’s CORE System to ensure longevity of support as well as keeping up to date with new risk management features to build on successes and enhance the user experience. The new system is more user friendly and sophisticated in displaying, accessing and reporting risk information, encouraging all users to engage in the risk management process. Furthermore, this ensures effective, robust and consistent risk management arrangements across the organisation.
Results
Having implemented CORE, Essex County Council has benefited from:
- Interactive dashboard – This brings the risk register to life, with interactive and configurable dashboards and reports, allowing users to report on risk information easily in a user friendly and visual manner.
- Instantaneous – The system can be accessed, drilled through and changes can be made live, which will improve risk reporting and discussion at all levels, from individual service team meetings right through to board level.
- Risk management back in focus – The continuing process of embedding risk management has been improved with the upgrade to CORE, enabling users to further engage through the use of new functionality. Essex County Council has more than 200 users of CORE, all accessing risks from this centralised system.
- Review Reminders – Any review dates that are missed can be automatically flagged up to ensure that all tasks are completed.
- Linking risks to corporate objectives – By linking risks back to corporate objectives their impact is more obvious. Risk management becomes part of the strategy conversation and due to the variety of reports that can be produced both operational and strategic risk performance can be identified and monitored.
- Tool tips – The tool tips are a new feature that provides a pop-up describing to the user what is expected within certain fields. This ensures that the information being input into the system is of consistent quality.
Future
Essex County Council is keen to promote the self-service element of the system, through training and supporting colleagues, to increase understanding of the risks and ensure informed, effective risk management. It is incredibly important moving forward to enhance the use of the functionality of CORE in its entirety, to ensure the Council is innovative and sophisticated in the way in which Essex County Council records, monitors and reports on risks.
Essex County Council would like to consider extending the use of CORE to its partners in the future, to enable greater understanding and collaboration of risk management activities.
About
Essex County Council is a large local authority employing more than 8,000 employees who provide services to more than 1.3 million people. It has 75 councilors, elected from 70 divisions.
