Effective risk management is a far greater worry to charity finance directors than financial sustainability, according to the newest risk report from PKF and the CFDG.

This year’s report Managing Risk – Protecting your assets found that while only 12% of FDs claimed to be most worried about financial sustainability, 59% said that aspects of embedding risk management was their greatest concern. Of the 402 FDs interviewed, however, only 28% described their risk management as “embedded and working effectively”.

In addition, of those who said they were worried about the effectiveness of their risk management, 33% believed that the risk management they did have in place was little more than a paper exercise.

Richard Weighell, head of PKF’s business risk services team and author of the report said that charities were generally aware of the assets they had and were taking steps to protect those assets, but in many cases the extent of that protection was insufficient. “Protection does come at a cost and a balance needs to be struck between threats and what can be afforded,” he said. “However, when risk management doesn’t progress beyond being a paper exercise, any charity’s risk defences are going to be inadequate and they will be vulnerable.”

For a copy of the report, contact Danielle Simmonds at Danielle.simmonds@uk.pkf.com or 020 7065 0320.