What is your role and what are your responsibilities?
As Corporate Risk Management and Business Continuity Manager, my role is to develop, embed and deliver risk and business continuity activities and aid in the response to both internal and external incidents.
I put together and review the Council’s risk management and business continuity polices and strategies, guidance documents, and risk and business continuity reports, and present them to senior directors, the Executive and to the Governance and Audit Committee.
I deliver corporate training on both risk and business continuity monthly and facilitate risk workshops, as well as business continuity testing exercises. The other aspect of my role is to get involved in responding to major external incidents requiring multi-agency working. I also represent the Council with other relevant internal services to aid a response.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
I enjoy that no day is the same, although there are routine tasks. Being creative and coming up with solutions is really satisfying, knowing it will make a difference. Helping people is rewarding.
We are a small team who are a really enthusiastic and have a positive attitude, which helps achieve our goals. No task is impossible, or we will at least attempt it to see if it’s feasible, and we keep in mind that it’s important to manage the expectations of all stakeholders.
What have been your biggest successes and achievements in your organisation?
Building good relationships with senior staff and their support of risk management and business continuity has helped me meet the expectations from my role.
I have implemented an annual corporate training programme on both risk and business continuity for several years now and these are always booked to the point where I have to organise more. The buy in from staff has been positive and this helps embed risk and business continuity within the organisation.
I have also worked with HR to reference risk management in the induction package for new starters. Staff have to attend the corporate risk management training if part of their role is to complete operational risk assessments.
In the last audit on the Council’s risk management service, the recommendations were minimal, which indicates the process we have adopted is a positive one!
What is the one piece of advice you would offer someone entering your profession?
Go in with an open mind, be flexible and a good listener. Soft skills are so important.
Don’t expect results immediately, as implementing risk and business continuity within any organisation takes time.
What topics and trends are emerging?
AI is topical as its rapidly developing and the full impacts are not yet realised.
We are seeing extreme weather impacts, for example, flooding, which is more frequent.
Cyber-attacks are affecting organisation seven more now, so organisations must be prepared.
Across the public sector, there is an issue with staff leaving an organisation and not being replaced, while those retiring leave with a vast amount of knowledge.
Leicester City Council are proactively mitigating all these risks.
How does ALARM benefit you and your organisation?
Being a member of ALARM is really useful as any member would agree.
The networking opportunities are fantastic and of course seeing people face-to-face in a forum, be it an event, conference, or training days, is valuable. You get to meet other members and your service providers that you would only ordinarily contact over the phone or by email.
In addition, the updates provided by ALARM - via the journal, the website and events - of what is happening in the risk, business continuity and insurance world, is invaluable.