Ask the Expert: Better risk management

I have just moved to a local authority as a manager in the social work team. Looking at case files, there have been a lot of “near misses” in the past year. How can I introduce a better risk management strategy?

It is good that you have taken an analytical approach to the work of the team. The next step is to engage them in the audit process and make it a routine part of everyone’s work. 

Establish the key risks and the near misses, not only in colleagues’ work, but also from case reviews from other authorities. You will then have a list of key issues and indicators of risk. Set up a routine time when a random selection of cases is subject to a team audit to allow for constructive learning. The process needs to be positive, not reproaching. Write up the issues, ideas and solutions as good-practice notes and distribute them. It is likely that there will be issues for other agencies, so share the results to improve multi-agency work.

Once this is part of ordinary business, you can offer to peer-review cases from other teams and spread the learning across the organisation.

Answered by Paul Clark, director of the Potential Organisation. He was director of children’s services in Harrow for seven years