Risks facing Organisations

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

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

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

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

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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Resilient Cities Catalyst

Resilient Cities Catalyst | 2019

In partnership with a community of urban resilience actors, RCC leverages experience and a pioneering ecosystem of partners and practitioners to apply lessons, insights, and resources to advance this critical work. RCC works with cities to build the local capacities and partnerships needed to understand, prioritise and concretely address each city’s risk and chronic stress as it pursues strategic goals or recovers from a crisis.

Urban Practitioners

RCC is a network of urban practitioners with deep experience in municipal government service design and delivery, public and private funding and financing, and philanthropic partnership development.

“Our resilience approach rests on three pillars – integrated assessment, planning and action, inclusive governance, and a forward-looking risk-based methodology.”

RCC’s resilience approach rests on three pillars – integrated assessment, planning and action, inclusive governance, and a forward-looking risk-based methodology – that build lasting capacity to address the deep-rooted problems that often impede progress at the project, neighbourhood, city and regional scales.

Their professional experiences cover a breadth of technical domains, from economic development to affordable housing to climate change adaptation to urban mobility and beyond. We know the way cities budget, the way cities plan and procure, and how cities operate.

Resilience Experts

RCC is a network of resilience experts who are pioneers in the urban resilience movement. They have collectively partnered with more than 100 cities worldwide to catalyse and support their resilience-building journeys to deliver impact for their communities.

Strategic Conveners

RCC is a group of strategic conveners who understand the importance of bringing uncommon partners and practitioners together. They have built action-oriented communities of practice and networks of diverse actors centred on complex challenges like urban migration, natural infrastructure, seismic resilience, and more.

The secret of risk management

John O’Dea | April 2009

Risk Management is as old as Methuselah. Although there are no records in the book of Genesis that indicate that Adam and Eve carried out a risk assessment, their world and ours might have been a different place had they given it some thought.

John O’Dea

The world might also have been a different place had the developed nations – with their reputedly state of the art management tools – applied them with the base integrity assumed in any formalized risk management process.

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