Register of Strategic Risks

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Risk element	Potential contributing factors	Accountable Person	Responsible Person	Impact	Likeli-hood	Potential mitigating actions	Early warning mechanisms	Remedial action	Monitoring Committee
1. Governance	Breakdown of interface between governance and management	Secretary	Deputy Secretary	High	Low	Court induction session and Court away-days to define Court business	Criticism by Court or Senate members	Review existing governance in the light of best practice and new legislation	Audit Committee
	Failure to implement funding council and other legal requirements	Secretary	Heads of Section	High	Low	Monitoring of external requirements and audit	Unfavourable audit reports		Audit Committee
	Failure of major institutional projects	Project Sponsor	Project Director	High	Low	Institutional approval of business plans and risk assessments Boards report regularly to UMG or CAPEX	Unsatisfactory or no reports	Require appropriate Board action	Capital Expenditure Sub-Committee
2. Financial Control	Poor integration of academic and financial planning	Senior Vice-Principal	Deputy Director of Court and Planning	High	Low	Internal and external audit Scrutiny of financial performance at UMG, JPFEC, Audit Committee and Court Appropriate training of staff	Monthly management reports and performance indicators Internal and external audit reports	Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the management and performance of research and commercialisation activities Ensure full implementation of the University’s Standing Financial Regulations	Joint Planning, Finance and Estates Committee
	Failure to achieve adequate levels of overhead and direct cost recovery	Heads of College	Director of Finance	Low	High
	Inappropriate financial process control	Director of Finance	Financial Controller	Low	Low
	Lack of budgetary control	Secretary / Heads of College	Director of Finance	High	Low
	Poor returns on investment	Director of Finance	Financial Controller	High	Low	Active review of investment strategies and returns Monitoring of AU investment and regular review of performance of capital assets External financial advice and benchmarking of performance Investment returns monitored via monthly management reports	Reports to Investment Committee and JPFEC
3. Funding Environment	Failure to respond to changing public funding environment	Senior Vice-Principal	Director of Finance	High	Low	Develop and implement strategies to increase income from non-government sources Maximise income from funding and research councils Maintenance of adequate cash reserves	Government’s budget and policy announcements SHEFC funding policy announcements and funding letters OST Research councils funding policies IT & library: SCONUL and UCISA reviews	Take forward initiatives to raise the University’s levels of ‘third stream’ income Provide clear advice on institutional priorities	Joint Planning, Finance and Estates Committee
4. Market Exposure: Teaching	Institutional inertia in responding to student market changes	Vice-Principal (Research) (Vice-Principal for Learning and Teaching from 1/8/05)	Director of External Relations	High	Low	Maintain flexible approach to marketing; respond to market changes Close relations with employers and professional associations	Inability to recruit high quality students	Review attractiveness and student demand for courses and programmes Undertake market research with undergraduate and postgraduate applicants	Student Recruitment and Admissions Committee
	Institutional inertia in responding to staff market changes	Senior Vice-Principal	Director of HR	High	Low	Maintain flexible approach to marketing; respond to market changes Effective HR policies and practices	Inability to recruit high quality staff	Proactive staff recruitment	Staffing and Development Committee
	Loss of market share – student recruitment	Vice-Principal (Research)	Director of External Relations	High	Low	Regular review of effectiveness of marketing – applications, acceptances Carry out market research with decliners, new entrants and influencers	Regular reports on student applications, conversion rates	Review attractiveness/ appropriateness of facilities (Library, C&IT, Accommodation etc.) Achieve UK/EU admissions targets, recruit more fees-only students as appropriate and, where possible, exceed overseas admissions targets	Student Recruitment and Admissions Committee
	Low student retention rates	Vice-Principal (Learning & Teaching)	Academic Registrar	High	High	Work of the Retention and Progression Strategy Team Improve student support systems	Regular reports on student retention, completion, quality and employability	Improve systems for identifying, monitoring and supporting students at risk	University Committee on Teaching and Learning
5. Market Exposure: Research	Deterioration of quality	Vice-Principal (Research)	Heads of College	High	Low	Monitor success rate of grants & contracts applications and take remedial action	RAE results Regular reports on research grants and contracts Regular reports on numbers of applications for research grants and success rates	University Committee for Research & Commercialisation to lead development and facilitate the research culture and commercial activities nsure balanced portfolio in terms of financial viability	Committee for Research, Income Generation and Commercialisation
	Financial loss due to failure to attract grants	Vice-Principal (Research)	Heads of College	High	Low
	Failure to price grants appropriately	Vice-Principal (Research)	Director of Finance	High	Low	Implementation of full economic costing Improved cost/price negotiations for other funding bodies
	Loss of key staff	Secretary / Heads of College	Director of HR	High	High	Effective Human Resources policies and procedures	Numbers of staff seeking to move	Actions of Heads of College / University Secretary
6. Market Exposure: Commercial	Loss arising from academic commercial activities (e.g. consultancy)	Vice-Principal (Research)	Director of R&I	Low	Low	Monitor closely performance against set targets and criteria Develop effective management and marketing strategies	Regular reports on consultancy activities	Develop transparent targets and incentives for commercial activities Review and, where necessary, implement effective costing/pricing procedures Raise awareness of financial implication of new and existing ventures	Committee for Research, Income Generation and Commercialisation
6. Market Exposure: Commercial	Loss arising from non-academic commercial activities (e.g. catering, residences, sports facilities)	Secretary	Director of Student Affairs or Director of Campus Services (for Catering and Residences) and Director of Sport & Recreation Services (for sports facilities)	Low	High		Regular reports on catering & residences activities		Joint Planning, Finance and Estates Committee
7. C&IT Resilience	Physical vulnerability of the present network topology to fire, flood, explosion or deliberate attack (viz. the layout of the network, the carriage of the network in the utilities ducts, and the lack of alternative/duplicate server sites)	Vice-Principal (Library and Information Services)	Director of DISS	High	Low	Comprehensive and regularly updated disaster recovery plans Establishment of distributed server rooms Changes to network topology as resources permit	Increased number of incidents of damage, accidental or deliberate Increased number of incidents of unavailability of network due to loss of network services/ hardware damage/ damage to software Unplanned expenditure due to uninsurable risk Increased number of insurance claims Increase in insurance premiums	Rolling capital investment programme to support agreed technology plan Introduce robust standards and strict management for administering connection to and use of the LAN Introduce and implement robust information security policy and disaster recovery plan Plan for duplicate server room exploiting heating station replacement and new library build Reinstallation of protected network as part of heating station replacement project	Information Management Committee
	Physical damage to hardware in central machine room/ classrooms/ clusters whether accidental (fire, flood, explosion) or deliberate	Vice-Principal (Library and Information Services)	Director of DISS	High	Low
	Lack of internal controls over use of the C&IT infrastructure, enabling inter alia, attack via the Internet and other insidious damage	Vice-Principal (Library and Information Services)	Director of DISS	High	Low
	Lack of preventative security and recovery measures (from control of access to sensitive areas to the provision of an uninterruptible power supply)	Vice-Principal (Library and Information Services)	Director of DISS	High	Low
	Human resource planning in C&IT area – difficult to compete with market rate and inability to manage succession planning of key staff/skills. Loss of just one or two key staff would leave University vulnerable	Vice-Principal (Library and Information Services)	Director of DISS	High	High	Establishment of an appropriate C&IT staff complement	Slow/nil response to systems failure/user demand	Introduce active succession plan for key staff/skills; distribute expertise required for critical areas from individuals to a broader team.
8. Estates	Physical security of estate from fire and flood	Senior Vice-Principal	Director of Estates	High	Low	Robust security arrangements and procedures Disaster and business recovery plans Appropriate insurance cover	Increase in number of security breaches Growing number of insurance and liability claims	Implementation of improved fire precaution works and fire risk assessments Installation of additional security measures Revised Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) systems introduced and audited	Health and Safety Committee
	Physical security from intrusion and vandalism	Senior Vice-Principal	Director of Estates	Low	Low
	Failure to implement adequate maintenance	Senior Vice-Principal	Director of Estates	High	Low
	Failure to implement adequate space management strategies	Senior Vice-Principal	Director of Estates / Heads of College	Low	Low				Joint Planning, Finance and Estates Committee
	Expansion of estate without sufficient planning	Senior Vice-Principal	Director of Estates	High	Low	Requirement for business plans and risk assessments	Failure to produce business plans or risk assessments	Focus on core estate issues	Joint Planning, Finance and Estates Committee
9. Compliance Issues	Failure to comply with legislation	Secretary	Heads of Section	High	Low	Robust procedures, regular review Training of key staff Regular reviews of health and safety performance	Growing number of breaches under various acts, increasing amount of claims and litigation Number of complaints against alleged failure to comply Qualification of accounts by External Auditors	Monitoring by University Safety Adviser and Heads of Section, as appropriate	University Management Group and appropriate Committees, depending on legislation concerned
	Poor awareness of legal obligations under a variety of Acts and Regulations.	Secretary	Heads of Section	High	Low
	Inadequate standards of health and safety	Vice-Principal responsible for Health and Safety	University Safety Adviser	High	Low	Health and Safety Management Systems	Increase in number of accidents and incidents Enforcement action by health and safety authorities Increasing amount of claims and litigation Unfavourable health and safety audit reports	Review health and safety systems	Health and Safety Committee
10. Management of Human Resource	Poor human resource policies and practices	Senior Vice-Principal	Director of HR	High	Low	Robust complaints procedures Deal with grievances and complaints promptly and fairly Staff development and appraisal programmes which reward good performance Succession and replacement planning for senior/expert members of staff to ensure business continuity Proactive recruitment practices Robust line management procedures	Number of staff complaints Number of industrial tribunals High staff turnover Low staff morale	Staffing policies in relation to dignity at work, management of work-related stress and mentoring Staff development programme to include more generic management skills Revise promotion processes for academic and academic related staff Staff appraisal for all academic and academic-related staff Develop and take forward strategies to ensure that teaching staff are fully C&IT competent Encourage all new members of academic staff to take PG Certificate in Higher Education Teaching Co-ordinate the contributions to educational staff development of the Educational Development Unit, the IT Training Unit and the School of Education	Staffing and Development Committee
	Competition to retain high-quality staff	Secretary / Heads of College	Director of HR	High	High
	Management overload	Secretary / Senior Vice-Principal	Director of HR	High	High	Regular monitoring of workloads
11. Commercial Contractual obligations	Poorly negotiated contracts	Vice-Principal (Research)	Director of R&I	High	Low	Apply business expertise gleaned from small business sector Sound legal and financial advice	Poor returns	All commercial work to be subject to rigorous contract terms and, where appropriate, to includes business plan evaluation, business risk analysis and procedures in accordance with SHEFC guidelines on commercialisation Institutional guidelines for staff undertaking research and commercial activities Regular reviews of projects Reviews of commercial activity and IPR developments by the Research and Commercialisation Committee Establishment of extensive networks with potential business partners and investors	Committee for Research, Income Generation and Commercialisation
	Poor knowledge of Intellectual Property legislation (including Patents & copyright)	Vice-Principal (Research)	Director of R&I	High	Low		Repeated identical queries on copyright and IPR issues Strong challenges to Patent applications from patent examiners
	Inappropriate business partners	Vice-Principal (Research)	Director of R&I	High	Low	Regular reviews of research outputs to determine market potential Regular activity reviews with key research groups Robust procedures for assessing business potential and investment needs Contingency plans for unexpected events in the market place Ensure corporate care (having majority holdings or sufficiently small minority holdings)	Failure by a partner to pay a milestone or a royalty Competitor organisations producing rival technologies
	Financial exposure to institution due to wrong assessment of business potential	Vice-Principal (Research) / Secretary	Director of R&I / Director of Campus Services	High	Low
	Loss of investment in spin out companies	Vice-Principal (Research)	Director of R&I	Low	High
12. Public Relations	Negative image projected in regional/ national press	Secretary	Director of External Relations	High	Low	Robust internal and external communications strategies Good, regular contact with journalists, businesses, partners and politicians Comprehensive outreach programme of academic and non-academic activities Robust internal grievance and complaints procedures, prompt and appropriate action	Frequency and quality of press coverage of media activities and queries from media Quantity and quality of responses to job vacancies Student recruitment numbers Political monitoring Feedback from communications – informal and formal – such as the web, evaluation forms, political queries, word-of-mouth, alumni relations Impact of community programmes and communications campaigns	Daily systematic monitoring of all media sources Daily briefing for Senior Managers on all key reputational issues Regular meetings with business and community leaders Media training available for key personnel	University Management Group
12. Public Relations	Poor relations with local/regional authorities and business community	Secretary	Director of External Relations	High	Low			Participation in community initiatives	University Management Group