Identifying risk treatment options
most appropriate risk treatment options for each of the risks you have determined are unacceptable. As we stated above, the purpose of this is to reduce the likelihood and consequences of a risk impacting your community or environment.
There are many differing options available to treat the risks you have analysed. It is not viable or cost-effective to implement them all, therefore some form of process for selecting the most appropriate, viable and cost-effective mix of risk treatment options must be put in place. This process must take into account such factors as legal, social, political and economic considerations (EMA, 2000b, p19).
1. Identify and evaluate available options
The first stage in this process is not just identifying the wide range of options available, but evaluating those options. Each option must be assessed to determine its potential effects with regard to reducing the likelihood and consequences of the risk. The considerations mentioned above need to be kept in mind when evaluating each option. One very important aspect to bear in mind here is that when considering the various options, risks to others are not inadvertently increased.
2. Selection of preferred risk treatment option(s)
Once each of the potential options has been evaluated, a decision needs to be made with regard to identifying which options are the most appropriate, effective and legally, socially, politically and economically acceptable and viable.
3. Plan and implement the risk treatment options
Once the most appropriate and acceptable risk treatment options have been selected, there is a need to develop a plan for implementing the selected options and then actually implementing that plan. Such plans should contain the strategies and tactics required to successfully implement the chosen treatment options. The implementation of effective risk treatment options requires an effective risk management system to be in place. This system should provide methods for implementation, assign roles, responsibilities and accountability for risk treatment actions and a process for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the risk treatment plan.
