Interview
PRACTICE
Risk management is common sense Jo Macdonald on meeting the challenges of change at the Department for Work and Pensions BY ARTHUR PIPER
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t the precise moment when Esther McVey stepped down as secretary of state for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in November last year, Jo Macdonald – head of the risk management division at the department – was at the IRM’s Risk Leaders Conference 2018 listening to a talk on political risk. It is an irony not lost on the genial Irish woman, but McVey is only one of seven secretaries Macdonald has worked in over the past nine years she has been in post. “We’re implementing the policy of the administration,” she explains, “so while every secretary of state has their own personal priorities and brings their own emphasis to things, it doesn’t really change the strategic goals.” Macdonald knows what she is talking about. She has seen big changes in policy direction, having experienced most flavours of administration – from a majority Labour government, through the country’s years of coalition government, to Conservative majority and minority governments. While DWP has outlined its five main strategic objectives (see DWP strategic objectives), Macdonald says that working with a minority government has “slightly hindered” its ability to push through sweeping reforms to the way that the country’s
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Universal Credit is actually an extension of what we’ve always felt – it’s what we’re about
Enterprise Risk
