Community Risk Management

Greenaway, R.

Rob Greenaway & Associates

2001

Rob Greenaway & Associates

www.greenaway.co.nz

The management of risk is a big part of a leisure manager’s job. But which risks? Our first thoughts normally go to health and safety. However, all we seem to achieve when managing safety is to limit what we can do. Rob suggests that the management of risk should actually be a significant justification for all leisure services. Consider the risks that your community is currently exposed to and what local government can do to reduce those risks.

In the current asset management / best value / efficiency and effectiveness environment, engineers use risk analysis to justify major expenditure on the maintenance and development of structures – or infrastructure. The word ‘infrastructure’ is defined in the New Oxford Dictionary as: ‘the basic physical and organisational structures and facilities (e.g. buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise’. This definition could happily apply to leisure services since there is no doubt that they are needed for the ‘operation of a society or enterprise’. Sadly, we shy away from using the term, and thereby drop leisure down a few rungs in local government’s spending priority. Audit NZ frequently implies that parks and community facility Asset Management Plans are of lower significance because they do not concern ‘infrastructural assets’. Rob argues that we’ve missed the boat and that risk management is an excellent way of getting back on board. He shows the importance of studying benefits and risks as one and the same. For example, what is the risk of not having cohesive communities, a healthy society or a sustainable economy based on a clean, green environment?

Keywords:

Recreation, Management, Risk, Facilities, Leisure, Parks, Community, Asset management

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Evaluation

National

Facilities, Outdoor Recreation

Community, Outdoors

Facilities (indoor), Facilities (outdoor)

Barriers, Benefits, Capability, Delivery, Management

1697

July 13, 2012