Implementing Enterprise Risk Management: Case Studies and Best Practices

CHAPTER 17 Developing a Strategic Risk Plan for the Hope City Police Service

ANDREW GRAHAM

Adjunct Professor and National Editor, Case Studies, Institute of Public Administration of Canada, Queen's University

Hope City is a midsize urbanized community, part of a larger conurbation and therefore part of larger and more complex forces. It is changing in terms of demographics and the demands on policing. While there is no central crisis in this case, there are a number of disturbing trends that represent risks to the Police Service business model now in play and to the ability of the Police Service to meet the emerging needs of its community.

The Hope City case is one that forces integrative thinking about risk management. It is a holistic set of facts and information designed to lead to the creation of a strategic risk management plan for the Police Service of Hope City. It is centered on the qualitative and impressionistic assessment of risk, rather than the quantitative. Therefore, coming to an assessment of the risks in this circumstance and rendering them relative weights will entail some form of collective, consensus-driven or centrally driven exercise. Further, aside from being a good platform for the effective assessment of risk and the assignment of weights, it is also useful when linked to the creation of a strategic or action plan for the Police Service as a whole. The case lends itself well to group work as well as written analysis.

THE CONTEXT

Like most police services, ...