The 2025 Comcover Risk Management Benchmarking survey closed on 3 March 2025. Entities will receive their reports by end of May 2025.
Comcover plays a key role in helping advance the objectives of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 by promoting better practice risk management across the Commonwealth.
The Benchmarking Program is centred on building risk resilience and capability across the Commonwealth. It includes a self-assessment survey tool which gives Comcover Fund Members an opportunity to measure their risk management capability against key areas of focus that align with the Commonwealth Risk Management Policy.
Risk Governance
Risk governance encompasses the organisational structures including risk ownership, responsibilities, and accountabilities across all levels for managing risk day-to-day, as well as the defined protocols for reporting and communicating risk information.
Effective communication requires consultation with relevant internal and external stakeholders to enable transparent, complete and timely flow of information between decision makers. Information presented in a fit-for-purpose manner will allow risk to be applied to strategic (corporate) planning.
Risk Culture
Risk culture is the set of shared attitudes, values and behaviours that characterise how an entity considers and communicates risk in its day-to-day activities, where officials are supported to engage with calculated risks.
A positive risk culture promotes an open discussion on current and emerging risks that considers both threat and opportunity, allowing risk to be appropriately identified, assessed, communicated and managed across all levels of the entity. Effective collaboration and communication enables clear accountabilities and measurement techniques to be implemented, allowing the entity to move towards its desired risk culture.
Risk Capability
Risk capability focuses on maintaining an appropriate level of capability across its people, systems, tools and processes to manage risk effectively across the entity.
The nature and scale of this capability must be considered in the context of the entity’s vision for risk and its current resource profile to enable timely and efficient communication of risk information.
Risk Management Framework and Practices
Effective risk management practices should include (and not be limited to): strengthening the link between risk and strategic objectives, actively leveraging risk appetite as a decision-making tool, utilising appropriate tools to identify and analyse risk, developing effective risk treatments, and enhancing management of shared risk.
Organisational Resilience and Agility
Organisational resilience is maintained and strengthened through regular review and evaluation of risk performance and control effectiveness.
Detailed analysis of internal and external data supports the identification of trends to equip the entity to be better prepared for emerging risks and future unknowns by adapting risk profiles, processes and tools in accordance with the changing risk landscape.
Findings from the Benchmarking Program can help participants understand how successfully risk management has been integrated into their entity’s business operations. It also assists to identify areas for improvement and prioritisation of risk management activities for capability uplift.
The following key documents provide further information on the Comcover Risk Management Benchmarking Program:
Please contact Comcover for further information on the Benchmarking Program.
