Identifying risks
The first step is to identify potential risks. You can assist the process by classifying risks as being either internal or external to the organisation. Internal risks arise from within the organization; typically, the organisation has varying degrees of control over them. External risks arise from the organisation’s external environment and are usually more difficult for the organisation to control.
There are a number of ways in which risks can be identified:
- reviewing the proposed community engagement activity against a checklist of potential risks [MS Word
(36KB) or PDF
(18KB)] - analysis of previous community engagement activities
- reviewing personal, local or overseas experience
- holding discussions with communities
- analysing scenarios
- seeking advice from consultants and specialists.
Once identified, risks should be recorded on a risk assessment and management plan [MS Word (26KB) or PDF (6KB)].
Types of risk
The following list of external and internal potential risks is a useful checklist against which you can analyse your proposed community engagement activity:
External risks
- Strategic – risks associated with threats to the agency’s purpose or agenda.
- Public image – risks associated with negative community perceptions of the agency.
- Stakeholder relationships – risks associated with working relationships and trust.
- Media – risks associated with relationships with journalists/editors and/or unbalanced and negative reporting.
- Political – risks associated with losing control of a project or losing the confidence of elected members/government.
- Commercial – risks associated with costs, competitive edge and sensitive information release.
- Staff/employees – risks associated with availability of key staff and risks to staff undertaking engagement.
- Technological – risks associated with loss of intellectual property, processes or methods.
- Business – risks associated with accomplishing core agency objectives.
- Legal liability – risks associated with litigation, public liability and professional negligence.
- Cultural/heritage – risks associated with loss of Indigenous/non-indigenous significant values or places.
- Opportunity cost – risks associated with not undertaking engagement.
Internal risks
- Vision and business strategy – risk associated with agency vision and business strategy not supporting a community engagement focus.
- Link to government policies and priorities – risks associated with:
- engagement activities not reflecting government policy and priorities.
- agencies not meeting the expectations of communities as reflected in government policy and priorities
- the impact on the funding strategies of agencies
- the political impact of engagement not being considered
- stakeholder relationships being affected.
- Stakeholder relationships and cross-government partnerships – risks associated with:
- engagement initiatives developed at local level not being supported at head office level
- engagement initiatives developed at head office level not being supported at local level
- duplication of engagement effort across government
- community groups trading-off one part of government against another.
- Leadership – risks associated with:
- lack of support in decision-making
- leadership behaviours not reinforcing engagement expectations
- community concern with the different messages being presented
- poorly planned and executed engagement efforts.
- Organisational culture – risks associated with:
- poor communication across the organisation
- resource allocation not supporting the engagement effort
- lack of linkages between the engagement activity and the overall departmental planning cycle
- lack of commitment to genuine engagement.
- Employee commitment and skills development strategies – risks associated with:
- staff lacking adequate skills to undertake community engagement activities
- staff lacking adequate motivation to undertake community engagement activities (for example, they may feel community engagement is not part of their job)
- lack of opportunities to participate in community engagement
- lack of resources to support safe and effective engagement.
- Internal communication and engagement strategies – risks associated with:
- incongruence in internal communications and engagement strategies, reflected in external approaches
- confusion of direction
- activities that are duplicated
- lack of support for engagement outcomes.
- Decision-making and resourcing – risks associated with:
- reduced engagement effectiveness
- inability to meet promises made to communities
- not meeting expectations of government in terms of community engagement delivery
- inability to support staff implementing engagement.
- Technological support – risks associated with:
- time and cost overruns
- technically flawed systems.
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