Risk Management

Audit Committees must give an opinion on the adequacy and effectiveness of risk management arrangements. This is not specific to Higher Education. The updated UK Corporate Governance Code (Financial Reporting Council) states that ‘Companies will now need to present information to give a clearer and broader view of solvency, liquidity, risk management and viability’. It goes onto state that ‘The Board should maintain sound risk management and internal control systems’.

While not prescriptive, any approach to risk management will almost certainly include some form of risk register. To support universities’ evaluation of their existing risk management arrangements, we have undertaken a twofold exercise to:

bring together thoughts on risk management practices across the sector
review institutional risk registers, highlight the common themes and offer comments on changes over the last few years and what these recent registers may indicate in terms of priorities and management focus.