61 Virtual Brochure – March 2025 Confidential - only for use by the intended party Risk Management - May 2024 Introduction Our annual strategic risk analysis – comparing risks and registers across the sector has highlighted the continued development (and benefits) from embedded risk management frameworks. We noted, for example: • a move to on-line systems – be it via SharePoint or bespoke IT solutions – with the registers being updated on a regular basis and there is less emphasis on a central co-ordinating function contacting risk owners for updates • through the above, more emphasis on risk owners to engage with the process and use the register as part of real time management reporting • further reflections on risk appetite and its use to drive specific action e.g., where the institutional position for a risk falls outside the appetite, what action needs to be take (and by when) to bring it to an acceptable position • assurance frameworks as part of the registers including an assessment on the effectiveness of each ‘line’. We are also seeing institutions returning to their framework and policy to ensure they are fit for purpose. Below is reminder of the foundations and fundamentals – including examples where we have seen risk management resource repositories and constructive challenge mechanisms. Risk management is a key component of effective corporate governance and the process by which risks are identified, their likelihood and impact assessed, and either tolerated or managed through proactive mitigation in line with institutions' defined risk appetite. It provides a valuable tool to a range of stakeholders, including risk owners, to help manage uncertainty and opportunities in the context of delivering institutions' strategic ambitions and objectives. Given the unprecedented challenges facing the Higher Education sector, a focus on exploration of certain themes, for example, financial sustainability via a risk management approach, may help institutions with their scenario planning, decision making and understanding of controls and assurance. We undertake discrete and holistic audits to assess institutions' risk management governance, systems and processes. Through our experience, we continue to see risk management policies and processes evolve, with institutions placing an increasingly strong focus on risk, and its use as a tool to mitigate adverse risk, but also as a positive, to drive value and inform key decisions around opportunities and investments. Through drawing on our experiences and practices from across the Higher Education sector (and beyond), this briefing note sets out examples of good practice in the approach to risk management from the work we have done with a number of providers, and that institutions may wish to consider in supporting the development and maturity of their own risk management arrangements.
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