RISKY BUSINESS
management both in selection of host cities and in monitoring preparations for the Games. Past experience of difficulties with venue readiness, operations and financial management have led to standardisation of the IOC candidature procedure. The IOC actually describes the selection process for 2012 as a risk assessment exercise ‘to verify the information stated in the candidature file, to determine whether proposed plans are feasible and to make a qualitative assessment of risk’. The preparations of host cities are subject to
additional monitoring through the IOC Coordination Commission appointed for each Games, which regularly assesses progress, preparedness and expected exposure to operational risks during the Games itself. The IOC’s interest in risk therefore contrasts with the disregard of FIFA for its own technical reports in awarding the 2018 and 2022 Football World Cups. Risk-based thinking has been more extensive
than ever before in preparations for London 2012, with audit and risk management practices in use across all aspects of the Olympic programme. This reflects the organisers’ efforts to integrate risk into decision-making processes of all major strategic, delivery and operational functions. Risk is an object of strategic planning as well as a focus of administration and operations, through reporting systems aimed at performance and delivery. For example, the audit and management of
programme risks is conducted by the Olympic Board and Government Olympic Executive. They use general information from reports on threats and hazards to the UK (such as the Cabinet Office’s
National Risk Register) as well as Olympic-specific information compiled from risk registers and risk logs of bodies such as the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and the Olympic Security Directorate (OSD) within the Metropolitan Police. At the same time, audit and management
of project and operational risk is conducted at the level of the individual organisation through implementation of bespoke strategies. These strategies include the ODA’s ‘three lines of defence’ policy of line management, programme assurance and risk and audit functions, and evaluation of risk and value for money in the OSD’s assurance of security projects for internal funding.
THE LANGUAGE OF RISK While increasing reliance upon risk management within Olympic governance is a response to its organisational environment, it also reflects the growing influence of the risk management profession. The language of risk is common to organisers responsible, for example, for security, legacy, infrastructure, operations and finance – even if that common language is subject to difficulties of translation across jurisdiction or differences in opinion concerning priorities for risk mitigation. Concern with the formalised management
of risk is associated with foresight and control. It does not guarantee, though, that all risks are avoidable. Tools such as risk registers are reliant upon the quality of information fed into them and creation of risk-based cultures inside organisations. Maintaining consistency in risk assessments across the programme has been one of the major
SPRING 2011 SOCIETY NOW 21
Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Stadium was a triumph of risk management as well as architecture
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