Categorie archief: English

COVID-19: A Failure in Risk Management

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David Zaruk as Risk-Monger | March 2020

The longer the Risk-Monger gets in the tooth, the more global mass panic events he has witnessed. Every crisis is a learning opportunity and as I had written in mid February, 2020. COVID-19, the Wuhan-originated coronavirus, has created a rich pedagogic environment.

When a train crashes, authorities are on the scene to determine the cause. The COVID-19 coronavirus is fast becoming a global train wreck and unless we quickly assess the mistakes leading up to this tragedy, more trains will pile into the station.

David Zaruk

Lessons are, unsurprisingly, being learnt the hard way with more mistakes sending the public health situation deeper into disaster. Worse, as our communications methods move from an expert-based model to a bottom-up citizen-based community model, our friends on social media become our main source of information.

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What have we learned from 2020?

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On the state of public risk management

Presentation by Jack Kruf with co-presentation by Leen Paape | March 2021

Jack Kruf

What have we learned from 2020? A reflection as a farewell lecture. Farewell. I felt a bit of resistance whilst shaving this morning. I’m not really one for goodbyes. But anyway, here I am.

Jack Kruf

This will be a plea to give the field of public risk management a boost. But answering the question? That’s not so simple. Geert Mak said it at the launch of his book Great Expectations: “Interpreting history isn’t easy when you’re still in the thick of it.” 

With many friends and colleagues watching on TV, and with my family here at home. It’s lovely to have you all here. I’ll try to shed some light on things. Together with Professor Leen Paape. An honour. It will be a three-part series, taking turns. Three questions are central, followed by a brief conclusion:

  • What is the issue at the start of 2021?
  • What is the intervention?
  • What is the associated governance?

Leen Paape

Professor at Nyenrode following a career that alternated between the public and private sectors. Started at the Military Academy in Breda and, after the Ministry of Defence, briefly worked at KPMG, then KLM, PwC and finally Nyenrode. I have served on an Audit and Risk Committee for the Municipality of Rotterdam and the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, and I now oversee an insurer, a pension fund and a large school organisation. 

Leen Paape

My driving forces are accountancy, risk management and corporate governance issues. I have seen quite a few things go wrong and would like to help prevent that from happening.

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Risks facing Organisations

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Now and in the future.

Philip Auzimour en Allan Vendelbo | november 2005

Flooding, school fires, unemployment, urban development and IT safety are some of the large and complicated risk issues for public organisations. These issues are essential to any public CEO who is faced with risks that not only involve the organisation itself but often the whole community. Still, what is the best way to address these significant risks? Should public risk management aim to minimise risks at all times? Or will this approach keep the public organisations from innovating? Although tight budgets in the public sector often set a limit for a proactive approach, the fact that risks have many facets and also positive aspects cannot be ignored. 

Allan Vendelbo, President UDITE

These views were repeatedly brought up and recognised by practitioners and experts at the PRIMO conference in Copenhagen on 25 November 2005. Although the conference offered no straight answers to the questions, their importance was clear to everybody. 

150 participants from 10 European countries and the US joined the first international PRIMO conference. Some of PRIMO Denmark’s private partners presented their expertise in risk management at pitches in the breaks between the conference talks. Pull-ups flashed colourful logos of insurance, HR, IT and finance companies. 

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Corona: we knew she was coming but forgot about it

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Jack Kruf | March 2020

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 gives rise to some personal thoughts. Of course, we face a crisis and are trying to limit the outbreak. But we seem to have entered the middle of a movie, in a world, for most people, strange, where aliens are trying to take over our precious planet. Some reflections through some familiar lenses in the world of value and risk management.

Microscopy image showing SARS-CoV-2. The spikes on the outer edge of the virus particles resemble a crown, giving the disease its characteristic name. (source: Wikipedia).

Certain or uncertain?

Some say we are living in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, and that this outbreak is related to this. I personally do not think along these lines of considering the world. I never did. I think we live in a highly sophisticated world where science is advanced, and experts are fully aware of most patterns. We live in a world full of certainties. VUCA is made up and non-existent in my view.

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PRIMO Risk Management Award 2019: Paul Hofstra

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Uitgereikt te Rotterdam op 18 september 2020 aan Paul Hofstra.

The board of PRIMO Netherlands and the board of PRIMO Europe have awarded the PRIMO Risk Management Award 2019 to Paul Hofstra for his courage and leadership at the intersection of public value, public risk and governance.

Paul Hofstra

The award is based, on the one hand, on his mature leadership as a board member and director of the Rotterdam Court of Audit and, on the other, on his professional contributions to the precise and essential application of the principles of risk management, as set out, for example, in the reports Heat Without a Pipeline and Public Value Under Pressure.

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Public value under pressure

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Headlines from ten years of audit reports

City of Rotterdam | 2019

The Audit Office has investigated the substantive similarities (‘common themes’) found in the conclusions of 42 reports it published on the municipality of Rotterdam between 2009 and 2019.

Administrative overconfidence and excessive regulation

The council is repeatedly overconfident in its plans and consequently takes on too many (financial) risks. Furthermore, the council often relies too heavily on rules and procedures, paying too little attention to practical implementation issues and residents’ everyday lives. These and other conclusions are set out in the Audit Office’s report ‘Public value under pressure’, a summary of dozens of investigations carried out by the Rotterdam Audit Office in the municipality of Rotterdam since 2009.

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Cracks appearing in financial relations

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On investment and solvency

Jack Kruf en Caspar Boendermaker | juni 2019

In April 2019, in consultation with BNG Bank, the annual PRIMO/UDITE meeting of the ‘From Global to Local’ think tank took place. Around 15 public-sector leaders met with BNG Bank to discuss the challenges facing local authorities.

The cracks in the local authority’s financial system are clearly visible.

The recently published Global Risks Report 2019 by the World Economic Forum and a presentation by the City of Delft revealed cracks in the financial situation. Is the financial resilience of the city and region at risk?

Transitions require investment, whilst the council’s solvency is under pressure.

The City of Delft presented its ambitious long-term investment strategy. Investments totaling at least 1.4 billion euros are planned through 2040, of which the council will have to cover approximately 25%.

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