The essence of risk management is dealing with uncertainties and reducing or removing risk factors. It is not about eliminating, avoiding or removing all risk.
| The Health and Safety Executive, in its latest guidance, stresses that ‘the law does not expect you to eliminate all risk’ but requires organisations to protect people as far as is ‘reasonably practicable’. Assessment of risks should be ‘suitable and sufficient – not perfect’. Health and Safety Executive, Five Steps to Risk Assessment, Revised 2006 |
The process of risk assessment has three main stages:
IDENTIFY RISKS – have a good look at what you do, where you do it and who with, and spot what could go wrong.
ANALYSE THE RISKS – decide how serious and likely the risks are.
CONTROL THE RISKS – do whatever you think is necessary to reduce the chances of things going badly wrong.
Identifying risks
Identifying risks involves scrutinising all operations where volunteers are involved and asking:
- WHAT COULD GO WRONG HERE?
What are the potential dangers, potentially risky situations, or problems that might occur because of, or related to, volunteer involvement? The aim is to produce a master list of risks. Consider five areas that may be put at risk:
- People – clients, volunteers, staff, the public, others.
- Property – premises, equipment, vehicles, financial assets.
- Income – current and future income.
- Goodwill – reputation with users, supporters, funders etc.
- Liability – legal and moral, claims and associated costs.
Analysing and assessing risks
The next step is to analyse and assess the risks on the master list. All risk assessment works on the basis of:
- HOW LIKELY IT IS TO HAPPEN.
- HOW SERIOUS IT WOULD BE IF IT DID
and the interplay between them. These two key dimensions – ‘chances are’ (likelihood of occurrence/probability of happening) and the ‘ouch factor’ (severity of impact/magnitude of harm) – can be graded qualitatively or quantitatively on a scale of 1-3 or 1-5. The two scores are then multiplied together.
For example, on a five-point scale the risk of a volunteer stealing from a client would be unlikely (score 2) but intolerable (5) = total score of 10. The risk of a grazed knee in children’s play could be possible (4) but trivial (1) = 4.
Controlling risks
Once risks have been identified and assessed, the next step is to decide on the strategies for dealing with them. There are three basic approaches:
- Reduce or remove the risk
- Minimise the harm if the risk materialises
- Transfer the liability
The published guide describes these processes in more detail and provides options, templates and checklists for carrying out a risk assessment.
