Balonne improving Enterprise Risk Management systems
The LGMS Risk Excellence Awards recognise the efforts of council members who have taken strong and effective action to understand and respond to their risk.
Balonne Shire Council has undertaken a review of their council’s Enterprise Risk Management Framework to bring it up to the current international standard, align council's risk management process with council's WHS Framework, and raising awareness of risk across the organisation. The implementation of this project won them an LGMS Risk Excellence Award in 2021.
As a recipient of the award, they received funding for targeted and eligible risk management initiatives at a total cost of $20,000 to further enhance their risk maturity within council.
As part of council's award winnin project, council took the opportunity to survey their staff and realised they had a low awareness of risk management. As a result, they implemented risk management training modules to 55 staff, which included expert training on:
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General Introduction to Risk Management
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Incident Management Response & Reporting
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Incident Investigation
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How to conduct Risk Assessments On-Site
With over 55% of their workforce including staff members, managers and supervisors attending the training over three days in November 2021. The face-to-face training was then followed up with the development of online learning management system modules tailored to their council, their enterprise risk management framework and workplace health & safety management system. The learning management sessions were recorded and can now be utilised for inducting new staff at council
Ms Michelle Clarke, Director Finance and Corporate Services at Balonne Shire Council acknowledged that their risk management processes and systems are still developing and said the award has helped council to raise awareness, provide practical training and deliver a suite of online modules that will be utilised for refresher training and induction.
“Risk management is a continuous process, and we are always looking for ways to integrate risk into our decision making and the way we do things around here”, said Ms Clarke.
