I am a qualified accountant for my sins and in any discussion of organisational resilience, Accountants always focus on financial resilience as the dominating factor.
Recent reports on the public and not for profit sector focus on the following issues and financial indicators:
Net revenue costs as a percentage of reserves of entities both now and for the future
The growth,definition and potential spplication of reserves
both now and in the future
The capital programme of an entity and the costs and benefits it will drive
The adequacy of cash resources that may be applied to cope with risks the entity will face
The capital financing options and the financial ability of an entity to cope with resilience risks
The adequacy, of both public and private funding of the public benefit sector
All these items are important and should be applied to the resilience debate.
When I speak to accountants they always bring up the above topics and act as if they are the only real topics of importance for organisational resilience!
This is not the case!!
The financial resilience aspects are only one aspect of organisational resilience!
The BSI resilience model has 16 questions and the New Zealand model has 13 questions.
Financial resilience is just a part of this and Accountants don't seem to recognise this.
The BSI model focuses on:
People
Process
Leadership and Management
Products and Services
I will examine these models more thoroughly in future blogs.
Just want to mention the Grenfell Tower Enquiry.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea was a robust Authority which had good levels of reserves:, so in financial terms, at least it appeared resilient.
However the Grenfell tragedy still occurred !
Can we still say that RKBC acted resiliently in this case?
Only the Enquiry will determine this as a final verdict but it can be stated that although the authority may have been resilient in financial terms there are questions it needs to answer in relation to other forms of resilience I.e operational resilience.
Accountants must therefore look further than just financial resilience to determine the resilience of an entity.
We will examine differing resilience models in future blogs!
As an accountant I realise that resilience is not just a financial issue.
MORE Accountants need to feel that way!
I will be examining these future resilience models beyond just financial factors!
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