Importancia de la precisión conceptual en el marco normativo

Seriousness

Cynefin

4.3.2. Summary

This section has addressed Gap in Knowledge C, contributed to B and informed Research Question Two. The research has found that serious strategic risks in local authorities are complex and that most strategic risks in this context have some complex characteristics. As a result the preliminary stages of the research to address Research Question Two will need to consider complexity theory and the research will need to take full account of the identified complexity.

4.4. Measuring Strategic Risk

This section addresses Gaps in Knowledge D and E36, contributes to B and informs the approach to Research Question Two. It is in two sections, a Technical / Societal Analysis of Strategic Risk in Local Authorities and Further Cynefin analysis to explore the nature of risk beyond the issues of complexity addressed in Section 4.3.

4.4.1. Technical / Societal Analysis of Strategic Risk in Local Authorities

The purpose of this analysis was to answer the question of whether strategic risk in local authorities is a technical matter for assessment by experts or a matter of societal perception. This represents a gap in knowledge, though the literature indicates that the answer leans towards the latter.

4.4.1.1. Findings and Analysis

The methodology set out in Section 3.4.2. has been followed and the simple scale defined for the research applied to the independently-validated data set developed for the Cynefin analysis (see Section 3.4.3). The results of this analysis are presented in Table 4.9 and, as an aid to interpretation of these results, the Technical / Societal (TS) Risk Scale is presented again in Table 4.10.

Table 4.9: Results of the Technical / Societal Risk Analysis

Risk Serious-

ness

TS Score 1 Over-reliance on a single IT provider for all key information systems 2.0 2

2 Failure to implement corporate strategy 3.0 4

3 Non-compliance with Disability Discrimination Act 2.0 4

4 Office buildings flooded 1.0 2

5 Member of staff trips on cables on office floor and breaks ankle 1.0 3

6 There is a high level of appeals against the authority's secondary school

placement decisions for new Year 7 pupils 1.0 4

7 Death or serious injury to vulnerable child / children in the local authority

area 3.0 5

8 Lack of private sector capacity for required level of residential and nursing

home placements 1.0 4

9 Failure of the Highways PFI process, directly impacting on the ability of the

Council to maintain a safe Highway infrastructure 2.5 3

10 Housing rent arrears exceed specified performance requirements 1.0 1

11 Senior manager abuses his position to obtain fraudulent payments of

£50,000 + from suppliers 2.5 4

12 Laptop containing payroll data for 16,000 members of staff stolen from a

member of staff's car 2.5 5

13 Breach of EU procurement directives on major procurement 2.0 2

14 Staff capacity and/or skills are inadequate to support and deliver the agreed

levels of service 2.0 3

15 Failure to effectively plan and prioritise for future capital investment

requirements 2.0 2

16 The risk management process fails to identify and reliably assess and bring

into management the serious risks facing the local authority 3.0 3

17

Delivery of inappropriate services due to a failure to effectively and appropriately consult with stakeholders on service priorities and modes of delivery

2.0 3

18 Joint local and national elections run poorly 1.0 3

19 Failure to respond to need for organisational change and performance

improvement 3.0 4

20 Changes to the economic environment make the Council economically

unstable 3.0 3

21

Critical loss of legitimacy for the local authority in a changing and challenging political environment which leads to an inability to function effectively

3.0 4

Table 4.10: Technical / Societal Risk Scale

Description of the Risk Score

This appears to be purely technical risk that would not generate any significant emotional reaction, other than frustration at the fact of the event, for example an error having been made

1

This appears to be primarily a risk that has significant technical

aspects but it is likely to also generate some emotional reactions 2 There appears to be a balance of technical and emotional aspects

and reactions to this risk OR It is not possible to clearly differentiate between the size of the emotional and technical elements of this risk

3

Emotional reactions appear to be greater than the technical aspects

but these technical aspects appear to be significant 4

This risk appears to be one which would generate overwhelmingly emotional reaction and, in comparison to which, the technical aspects would be deemed not to be significant

5

As explained in Section 3.4.2, this analysis assumed a constant level of likelihood for each risk and focused on the effects of each risk were it to happen.

Risk C11 was particularly difficult to place on the continuum. A score of 4 was finally settled on due to the messages in the media reports of such an event being a betrayal of trust combined with the strong technical elements. The latter could perhaps have justified a score of 3, though on balance this would have understated the societal trust issues.

The bar chart in Figure 4.3 shows the frequency of the five TS scores. Figure 4.3: Frequency of Technical / Societal Risk Scores

The independently-validated sample of risks clearly combines quantitative and qualitative aspects, with only three out of the twenty-one having predominantly one or the other. The balance of the two aspects leans towards the qualitative. This is as anticipated from the literature review (See Section 2.7.1). 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5