17 Virtual Brochure – February 2024 Other observations Student wellbeing: We note that student wellbeing does not feature as a standalone risk on many strategic risk registers. Where it does appear, it carries a high inherent risk on average (ranked 4th) and institutions report a high degree of confidence in the effectiveness of their mitigation activities (figure 2). While the 2023 Student Academic Experience Survey shows that overall levels of student wellbeing have improved slightly, levels remain low, likely fuelled by the cost of living and the longer-term impacts of disruption to education from the pandemic. Uniac’s audits of student wellbeing often highlight dedicated but overstretched support services struggling to deal with increasing student demand. With the continuing national debate about a legal duty of care towards students we would encourage institutions to think thoroughly about their risk exposure in this area and whether actions in place to mitigate risks are as successful as risk registers imply. Staff lifecycle: Once again our European risk environment analysis indicates that in other sectors human capital, diversity, talent management and retention is the second biggest risk facing organisations. While our HE analysis shows that risks around the recruitment, retention, motivation, and retention of staff feature on almost every institutional risk register, as in 2022, they remain relatively low ranked despite being essential to the delivery of institutions’ strategic aims and ambitions. Evidence from our internal audits suggests that some institutions have a relatively low level of maturity around organisational development compared to other sectors. The definition of risks and actions in this area tends to be broad brush or devolved to individual faculties or services. Risks around competition for talent are seldom recognised. Institutions should ensure that their executives, board, and audit committees spend sufficient time considering people-related risks across the whole employment lifecycle. Business continuity: We observe a substantial decrease in the ranking of inherent and mitigated risk scores around business continuity compared to 2022, and a high degree of confidence in risk mitigation in this area. This might be expected given the lessons learned from the pandemic, from dealing with industrial action, weather damage, and cyber incidents. Our audit work demonstrates that in many institutions, business continuity policies and testing regimes have been reviewed and strengthened. However, we would caution against complacency and encourage institutions to continue to stay abreast of potential risks, have specific cyber incident plans, and maintain regular desktop and live disaster management and business recovery and continuity exercises. Digital estate: Risks around the digital estate reflect concerns about legacy systems and technical debt, the replacement of core systems, and leveraging new technologies in an inclusive and accessible way. We observe that while the ranking of the inherent risk is similar to 2022, there is a substantial decrease in the ranking of average mitigated risk scores. Mitigation activities suggest that institutions are making good progress in improving their digital infrastructure and rolling out reliable digital services to underpin education, research, and support. However, our audit experience paints a less optimistic picture, with some institutions contending with fragmented systems lacking
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