Comparing risk workflows
A shared spreadsheet, or the Risk Register.
Most governing boards already keep some kind of risk record. This page sets out what a shared spreadsheet does well, what changes once a risk lives in the Risk Register instead, and where the two are simply different tools for the same job.
Side by side
The same job, two different outcomes
Neither approach is unusual. Here is what each one actually does once the meeting is over.
Workflow reality
A shared spreadsheet
- One person, often the chair, the clerk or the business manager, keeps the master copy and updates it when there is time before a meeting.
- Risks are listed and rated, but whether each one gets a treatment, a named owner and a review date depends on whoever filled in that row.
- Between meetings, the board sees the register only when it is circulated as an attachment.
- It works well for as long as someone keeps it current, and if that person moves on, the habit of updating it often moves on too.
The loop
The Risk Register
- Ten categories drawn from the Orange Book and DfE guidance, so every risk already has a home.
- Scored by RAG or a likelihood and impact matrix, whichever fits how the board works.
- Every risk carries a treatment, a named owner and a review date, so it surfaces again on its own.
- Across an academy trust, every school's register rolls up into one view for the centre.
What changes in practice
Three moments where the difference shows
Not in theory. In the ordinary moments a governing board actually has.
A new risk turns up mid-term
It gets added to the list next time someone opens the file, with nothing to bring it back to anyone's attention.
It is logged with an owner and a review date the moment the board accepts it, and it surfaces again on its own when that date arrives.
The clerk or the chair changes
Whoever takes over also inherits the job of working out what half-finished entries actually mean.
The register carries on exactly as it was: the same categories, the same owners, the same review dates, held by the system rather than one person.
A governor asks where things stand between meetings
Someone has to find the latest version of the file and check whether it is still current.
Any governor can see the live status, the owner and the next review date without asking anyone.
Who this matters to
What changes for each seat at the table
The same board, four different vantage points on the same register.
Chair
Opens every meeting with a clear risk position, not a search for the latest version of a file.
Headteacher
Always knows which risks are already being treated and by whom, without re-explaining it each time.
Clerk
Minutes and the register agree, because both are reading from the same live record.
Governor
Can check any risk's status between meetings without waiting for the next attachment.
Get started
One twenty-minute call. No commitment.
See your own school's risks in the register, then decide.