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The internal audit remit includes assessing budgetary compliance by departments, investigating fraud and error, appraising systems of control and undertaking consulting, the last including risk management even though internal auditors generally lack risk training and expertise. Surveying internal auditors in Scottish local authorities, this paper investigates discrepancies between professional guidance and current practice regarding the risk management remit of internal audit. Lines of responsibility were found to be blurred, so there were insufficient safeguards to ensure compliance and the roles and responsibilities of internal audit involvement in risk management assurance did not fully comply with professional guidance. This paper has important policy implications for clearly defining the risk and control culture within organizations. The research findings prove that internal auditors often stray into areas of risk management outside their remit, and thus support the need to understand the clear boundaries of separation between the two roles. The paper identifies the challenge that both of these functions face and provides guidance as to how both professions can work more effectively to strengthen governance frameworks. Internal auditors are encouraged to go beyond local government focused guidance, to address the disconnect between 'institutionalized' sector specific guidance and wider professional guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the risk management challenges of shared service provision in Scotland and Finland. Policy context and institutional frameworks largely determine the local choice of organizational arrangements and so the risks that arise and the way they are shared. Finnish municipalities have developed joint municipal arrangements for sharing services, whereas Scotland's shared service challenges are related to the historical separation of health and social care services and the search for cost savings while improving service effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports case study research, the results of which are used to consider whether councils have recognised the potentially substantially increased social risks they may create as they seek to reduce their spending in line with the UK Government’s programme of public sector austerity. It discusses the conceptual shift in the public sector risk management literature towards social risk management (SRM), presents empirical evidence of social risks and considers the approach to SRM developed by other organisations. It finds no evidence of SRM within the case study authorities and so advocates a shift in the public sector risk management culture from a preoccupation with defensive-institutional risk management practices to a more proactive social dimension. In so doing, it discusses the goals of SRM, the constraints limiting their achievement, metrics for measuring social risk, tools for mitigating social risk and the problems faced when operationalising SRM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses Glasgow's use of the Prudential Borrowing Framework (PBF) for rationalisation and renewal of its primary schools and the additional borrowing costs to be met by the resulting efficiency savings and by sale of surplus school sites. Our findings reveal that the PBF has many perceived advantages compared with the Private Finance Initiative/Public Private Partnership (PFI/PPP) route to capital procurement and modernisation. In particular, the link between policy and the use of resources is more transparent under PBF than for PFI/PPPs. However, the approach to risk management seems to have become more relaxed using the PBF even though the Council now retains all associated risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the utilisation of the UK’s Prudential Borrowing Framework (PBF) and the associated Prudential Code for local government capital finance. It finds that the increased flexibility and local freedom are at the cost of less financial certainty in terms of the risks borne by local authorities and local tax payers. The PBF seems to encourage a less formal approach to risk, being considered inevitable and handled if and when adverse risk outcomes occur. Consequently capital projects may lack affordability, sustainability and prudence. The Prudential Indicators required by the Code are not easily understood by non-specialists and their calculation cannot be used to replace sound judgement or to identify the best financing option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about the complex interplay between quality and risk in the context of care for older people in Scotland. We review relevant theoretical literature underpinning the concept of ‘quality’ and its relationship with ‘risk’ to discover a wide range of regulatory challenges related to issues such as an increasing number of older people; intense press scrutiny; private care home provision; and, healthcare professionals increasingly shifting focus from generic care needs towards a personalized approach focusing on the care needs of the ‘individual’. In this environment, risk control must be ‘negotiated’ against resultant impact on the quality of life for individuals. We relate the existing literature to the approach devised by the Care Commission for Scotland to enforce published government standards: the adoption of a modern risk-based approach to regulation involving the use of a risk assessment scoring tool to determine and justify the level of regulatory intervention; and the development of a quality assessment framework that articulates the existing government standards. We conclude that if regulation and quality assurance are to concern themselves more with risk, then this will best occur within the context of integration and simplification rather than increased complexity —; perhaps with a unified set of care principles and quality themes that make direct provision for the management of risk. While this is of specific relevance to the regulator in Scotland, the principles we discuss have application to other parts of the UK and to other countries that face similar challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The contemporary understanding of public sector risk management entails a broadening of the traditional bureaucratic approach to risk beyond the boundaries of purely financial risks. However, evidence suggests that in reality public sector risk management does not always match the rhetoric. This paper focuses on the apparent inadequacy of any risk framework in the current Prudential Borrowing Framework (PBF) guidance in relation to that which was developed under Public Private Partnerships and Private Finance Initiative (PFI). Our analysis shows that the PBF and its associated indicators for local authorities adopt a narrow financial approach and fail to account for the full range of potential risks associated with capital projects. The PBF does not provide a framework for local authorities to consider long-term risk and fails to encourage understanding of the generic nature of risk. The introduction of the PBF appears to represent a retrograde step from PPP/PFI as regards risk and risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wherewithal of achieving best value in private finance initiative (PFI) projects and the associated problems therein are documented. In the UK, PFI has offered a solution to the problem of securing necessary investment at a time of severe public expenditure restraint. In PFI schemes, the public sector clients must secure value for money, while the private sector service providers must genuinely assume responsibility for project risks. A broad-based investigation into PFI risk management informs the discussion in this paper. It is based on 68 interviews with PFI participants and a case study of eight PFI projects. The research participants comprised of contractors, financial institutions, public sector clients, consultants and facilities management organizations. The qualitative software Atlas.ti was used to analyse the textual data generated. The analysis showed that the achievement of best value requirements through PFI should hinge on: detailed risk analysis and appropriate risk allocation, drive for faster project completion, curtailment in project cost escalation, encouragement of innovation in project development, and maintenance cost being adequately accounted for. Factors that continue to challenge the achievement of best value are: high cost of the PFI procurement process, lengthy and complex negotiations, difficulty in specifying the quality of service, pricing of facility management services, potential conflicts of interests among those involved in the procurement, and the public sector clients' inability to manage consultants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]