Our Stewardship in practice series highlights insights from the facilitators behind IPAA Advantage and the practical ideas they bring to the key capability areas shaping today’s public sector. This time, we hear from Pete Gervasoni, Chief Risk Officer at Skefto Innovations, about how stronger risk literacy can support better decisions, clearer communication and organisational resilience.

Stewardship requires us to think beyond the decision in front of us. It means considering how the choices we make today can affect an organisation’s ability to deliver, adapt and remain resilient over time.

Risk belongs in everyday decision-making

Risk can easily be seen as the domain of specialists: something managed through frameworks, registers, assurance processes and dedicated risk teams.

For Pete, that view is too narrow.

Across more than 20 years working in risk and resilience in the public sector, one of the capability gaps he has observed is not necessarily a lack of tools. It is the ability to make sense of complex risk information, bring it into the decisions an organisation is making and translate it into something people can understand and act on.

Too often, risk management is treated as a standalone function or an afterthought, rather than something that actively informs strategy. When risk is considered alongside organisational priorities, it can give executives and boards greater confidence when weighing requests for resources, budgets and new initiatives.

Pete points to one organisation that integrated risk management and risk appetite directly into its Board briefing papers. Putting the right risk information in front of the Board at the right time helped the organisation reduce costs, reconsider priorities and, in one instance, decide not to pursue an objective because of the nature and complexity of the risks involved.

That broader view matters beyond executive decisions, too.

“Whether you’re in HR, policy, IT or project management, your decisions shape organisational resilience. When disruption hits, understanding risk language means you’re not just reacting, you’re contributing to a coordinated, informed response.”

The aim is not to turn every public servant into a risk specialist. It is to build enough risk literacy for people to recognise uncertainty and potential consequences, understand what they mean for the outcome they are trying to achieve and raise them when they matter.

Making complexity useful

Identifying a risk is only part of the job. The next challenge is communicating it in a way that helps someone make a decision.

For Pete, one of the most common mistakes is overcomplicating risk information: making it too technical, relying on jargon or trying to make it sound more sophisticated than it needs to be.

The starting point should be much simpler: write for the audience.

A technically accurate assessment can still have limited value if the person receiving it cannot readily understand what is happening, why it matters or what they can do about it.

Pete encourages people to focus on a few practical questions: What is the risk event? What could cause it to happen? What would the consequences be? What controls are already in place, and are they effective? And ultimately, is this a risk the organisation wants or needs to take?

Thinking this way moves risk away from being information that is simply recorded and towards information that can genuinely support action.

From avoiding risk to making informed choices

Good risk management is not about removing uncertainty or preventing anything from going wrong.

Understanding risk can instead give people greater confidence to make considered choices. When leaders can see what could happen, understand the potential consequences and assess the available responses, they are better placed to decide what level of risk is appropriate.

That distinction matters.

An organisation focused only on avoiding risk can constrain action. An organisation that understands risk can make deliberate choices about where to act, where to prepare and where greater caution is warranted.

Taking risk is part of doing business in the public sector. Risk management provides the structure to do that deliberately and take the right risks in pursuit of better outcomes.

Risk as stewardship in practice

Seen this way, risk management is not simply a technical discipline. It is one of the ways stewardship can be exercised in everyday public sector work.

The stewardship  value of risk thinking lies in the habits it creates: considering consequences, surfacing issues that leaders need to understand and preparing for circumstances that may affect future delivery.

Importantly, that responsibility is distributed.

It can be exercised whenever someone recognises a material risk to an outcome, translates complex information into useful advice, raises an issue that might otherwise be missed or helps their organisation prepare for disruption.

For Pete, strengthening that capability across an organisation supports better risk management, but the benefit is broader: better-informed decisions, stronger resilience and greater confidence to respond when circumstances change.

Put it into practice

Explore Pete Gervasoni’s IPAA Advantage programs, including Risk storytellying for public sector professionals, A data driven approach to risk management – Fundamentals, Becoming an HR risk storyteller, Cyber resilience foundations and Business continuity foundations, which translate these ideas into practical approaches for understanding risk, communicating complexity and strengthening organisational resilience.