Fundamentals of Risk Management

Corporate governance for a government agency
For government agencies, robust corporate governance arrangements are usually 
mandatory. Also, for many government agencies, the main reason for paying atten-
tion to risk management is to ensure that adequate corporate governance arrange-
ments are in place. In other words, the main motivation for ensuring good standards 

---

Corporate governance model
345
FIgURE 
28.2
Corporate governance in a government agency
• Strategic context
• Available resources
• Delivery expectations
• Required changes
Strategy
• Urgent actions that need
to be taken
• Timescale for completion
• Responsibility for the required
actions
Influence
and/or
Inform
Business plan
• Long-term (strategic) risks
• Medium-term (tactical) risks
• Short-term (operational) risks
• Risks identified and escalated from project,
programme and local risk registers
Corporate risks
• Adopted framework
• Strategic imperatives
• Current status
• Actions in hand
Balanced scorecard
• Monthly risk review
• Changed assumptions
• Forecast performance
• Agreed risk performance
standards and metrics
Executive committee
of risk management in a typical government agency will be the desire to support the 
corporate governance arrangements in the agency. Figure 28.2 shows the corporate 
governance components for a typical government agency.
For commercial organizations, corporate governance and risk management are 
designed to assist the organization to achieve its objectives, including commercial
or marketplace objectives. The motivation for government departments to ensure 
good standards of corporate governance is narrower and is often focused on
accountability.

---