Voice of the Back Office

Brian – a police officer – reports this opening salvo for 2006 from the backroom boys of the Met Police.
Corporate Risk Management and Health and Safety naming 06.01.06 The decision has been made to re-brand the Corporate Risk Management Team (part of the DCC) and the Health and Safety Branch (part of HR Directorate) to clarify their respective roles for both team's customers.To clarify the role of the two teams for MPS staff the following re-branding will apply from Monday 9 January 2006:
• The Corporate Risk Management Team will now be known as the Business Risk Management Team.
• The Health & Safety Branch will be known as the Safety and Health Risk Management Team.
• The Corporate Risk Assessments owned by the Safety and Health Risk Management Team will be known as the Corporate Safety and Health Risk Assessments.
• The Corporate Risk Register owned by the Business Risk Management Team will be known as the Management Board Business Risk Register.
This re-branding clarifies the nature of the risks handled by each team and puts safety first.Safety and health risks are elements of business risk, the latter encompassing all risks to the achievement of the business objectives of the Service and its (B)OCUs and Departments. The Corporate Risk Management Team has an oversight role in relation to all business risks. In the area of health and safety this role is discharged through close liaison with the Health and Safety Branch and membership of the Strategic Health and Safety Committee.
Risk management terminology can be confusing, particularly when it is used in differing contexts and because it can mean different things to different people. There is some confusion amongst MPS colleagues between the terms "risk assessment" and "risk management". Furthermore, it can be confusing when we use the word "corporate" both to mean something mandated by the corporate centre or the top layer of a process that is also deployed at Business Group and OCU levels.Risk Assessments, including dynamic risk assessments, refer to operational or safety matters, whereas Risk Registers are generally part of the business planning and change management processes, when identifying risks to achievement of business objectives.By re-branding the two risk management teams and their key products we aim to clarify the nature of the risks with which each is concerned.We hope that the changes achieve their purpose.
If you have any thoughts as to how we might clarify risk management matters for you further please do let us know.