Well it had to be really didn’t it? It is in the company name after all!

To me, there is an important difference between risk management and risk assessment. Risk assessment is the daily process of identifying hazards, the associated risks and the required control measures - for example:

• Hazard – working in a chimney-
• Risk – falling down the chimney and into the fire and resulting in injury, burns or death
• Control measures – appropriate harness attached to rated anchor point as part of a confined space lowering system or preferably designing present delivery processes to remove the need to go down a chimney which leads me nicely onto...

Risk Management which is a wider look at the context of the organisation and an appreciation of what acceptable risk looks like in that context. This can then be followed by decisions on risk treatments (which include avoiding, managing, transferring or retaining the risk) and agreement on an overall risk profile.

Avoiding delivering presents on Christmas Eve would not be an acceptable option to most of the population, so Father Christmas has clearly taken the decision to manage operating in a high risk environment, relying on glitter, joy and magic as control measures!