A Worthy Cause

Now that we have moved into the New Year.

I feel that it is my duty to bring to the attention of the world the unrecognised hard work of some talented but oft-maligned individuals. I did consider organising a pop concert on the Small Corner Lawn Bowls Association green, but on reflection this would only highlight their thankless toil for one brief day. There needs to be a concerted effort to keep them in the forefront of our minds for the whole year. Besides, the S.C.L.B.A. committee turned down my request when I couldn’t promise them that Eminem and Madonna would be making the line up.

There wasn’t any need for me to do anything on this scale last year. 2005 was obviously the year of the PCSO and the Throbbing spin team had all of the angles covered. Then, towards the latter months I noticed that there was much talk of ‘Modernisation’, ‘Implementation Teams’, ‘Service Reviews’ and ‘evolution’. Clearly, gifted as they are, these would not be roles for our PCSO’s. Anyway, they’ll be far too preoccupied filling in their police officer application forms again.

So, we’ll be turning to a crack unit of our most able employees to step into the breech.

Take a minute to say a prayer of thanks for the humble Throbbing Policy Maker.

Not for them the trivial task of working earlies, lates and nights fighting crime on the mean streets of the Metropolis. They’re far too important for that. To these elite men and women a ‘domestic’ is when a gentle reminder has to be sent out regarding the late payment of tea club subs. Give them a conference room and a computer and they can change the world without breaking a sweat.

You’ll be glad to know that I won’t be asking anyone to dig deep to support these superstars in their efforts. I’m just attempting to raise awareness for them. You never know when you could be in desperate need of a new policy and sometimes the conditions they have to work in are, frankly, unbearable. Until the air conditioning engineer arrives that is.

To keep them firmly in our hearts and minds, I have come up with a novel plan. I’m calling it “Make Policy-free Days History”. I will be taking on the arduous task of counting all of the new policies issued nationally, Throbbing-wide and locally over the next twelve months. I’ll be keeping a running total with the aim of showing you that we can have more than 365 new policies this year. To keep your interest piqued I’ll be letting you know about some of the more important ones.

For example; while you were overcoming your hypothermia and swollen feet from the celebrations, they were already hard at it. No time for an extended break for them, they were straight in to a busy week of eleven new policies. Culminating in the following announcement:-

Corporate Risk Management and Health and Safety naming 06.01.06

The decision has been made to re-brand the Corporate Risk Management Team (part of the DCC) and the Health and Safety Branch (part of HR Directorate) to clarify their respective roles for both team's customers.

To clarify the role of the two teams for MPS staff the following re-branding will apply from Monday 9 January 2006:

• The Corporate Risk Management Team will now be known as the Business Risk Management Team.
• The Health & Safety Branch will be known as the Safety and Health Risk Management Team.
• The Corporate Risk Assessments owned by the Safety and Health Risk Management Team will be known as the Corporate Safety and Health Risk Assessments.
• The Corporate Risk Register owned by the Business Risk Management Team will be known as the Management Board Business Risk Register.

This re-branding clarifies the nature of the risks handled by each team and puts safety first.

Safety and health risks are elements of business risk, the latter encompassing all risks to the achievement of the business objectives of the Service and its (B)OCUs and Departments.

The Corporate Risk Management Team has an oversight role in relation to all business risks. In the area of health and safety this role is discharged through close liaison with the Health and Safety Branch and membership of the Strategic Health and Safety Committee.

Risk management terminology can be confusing, particularly when it is used in differing contexts and because it can mean different things to different people.

There is some confusion amongst MPS colleagues between the terms "risk assessment" and "risk management". Furthermore, it can be confusing when we use the word "corporate" both to mean something mandated by the corporate centre or the top layer of a process that is also deployed at Business Group and OCU levels.

Risk Assessments, including dynamic risk assessments, refer to operational or safety matters, whereas Risk Registers are generally part of the business planning and change management processes, when identifying risks to achievement of business objectives.

By re-branding the two risk management teams and their key products we aim to clarify the nature of the risks with which each is concerned.

We hope that the changes achieve their purpose. If you have any thoughts as to how we might clarify risk management matters for you further please do let us know.

I think you’ll agree this is a fine example of a great year to come.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.