Suchergebnisse

Government institutions have responsibilities to distribute risk management funds meaningfully and to be accountable for their choices. We took a macro-level sociological approach to understanding the role of government in managing environmental risks, and insights from micro-level psychology to examine individual-level risk-related perceptions and beliefs. Survey data from 2179 UK citizens showed that lay people's funding preferences were associated positively with beliefs about responsibility and trust, yet associations with perception varied depending on risk type. Moreover, there were risk-specific differences in the funding preferences of the lay sample and 29 policy makers. A laboratory based study of 109 participants examined funding allocation in more detail through iterative presentation of expert information. Quantitative and qualitative data revealed a meso-level framework comprising three types of decision makers who varied in their willingness to change funding allocation preferences following expert information: adaptors, responders and resistors. This research highlights the relevance of integrated theoretical approaches to understanding the policy process, and the benefits of reflexive dialogue to managing environmental risks.

Government institutions have responsibilities to distribute risk management funds meaningfully and to be accountable for their choices. We took a macro‐level sociological approach to understanding the role of government in managing environmental risks, and insights from micro‐level psychology to examine individual‐level risk‐related perceptions and beliefs. Survey data from 2,068 U.K. citizens showed that lay people's funding preferences were associated positively with beliefs about responsibility and trust, yet associations with perception varied depending on risk type. Moreover, there were risk‐specific differences in the funding preferences of the lay sample and 29 policymakers. A laboratory‐based study of 109 participants examined funding allocation in more detail through iterative presentation of expert information. Quantitative and qualitative data revealed a meso‐level framework comprising three types of decisionmakers who varied in their willingness to change funding allocation preferences following expert information: adaptors, responders, and resistors. This research highlights the relevance of integrated theoretical approaches to understanding the policy process, and the benefits of reflexive dialogue to managing environmental risks.

Government institutions have responsibilities to distribute risk management funds meaningfully and to be accountable for their choices. We took a macro‐level sociological approach to understanding the role of government in managing environmental risks, and insights from micro‐level psychology to examine individual‐level risk‐related perceptions and beliefs. Survey data from 2,068 U.K. citizens showed that lay people's funding preferences were associated positively with beliefs about responsibility and trust, yet associations with perception varied depending on risk type. Moreover, there were risk‐specific differences in the funding preferences of the lay sample and 29 policymakers. A laboratory‐based study of 109 participants examined funding allocation in more detail through iterative presentation of expert information. Quantitative and qualitative data revealed a meso‐level framework comprising three types of decisionmakers who varied in their willingness to change funding allocation preferences following expert information: adaptors, responders, and resistors. This research highlights the relevance of integrated theoretical approaches to understanding the policy process, and the benefits of reflexive dialogue to managing environmental risks.

We present the preferences for environmental regulatory reform expressed by 30 UK businesses and industry bodies from 5 sectors. While five strongly preferred voluntary regulation, seven expressed doubts about its effectiveness, and 18 expressed no general preference between instrument types. Voluntary approaches were valued for flexibility and lower burdens, but direct regulation offered stability and a level playing field. Respondents sought regulatory frameworks that: are coherent; balance clarity, prescription and flexibility; are enabled by positive regulatory relationships; administratively efficient; targeted according to risk magnitude and character; evidence-based and that deliver long-term market stability for regulatees. Anticipated differences in performance between types of instrument can be undermined by poor implementation. Results underline the need for policy makers and regulators to tailor an effective mix of instruments for a given sector, and to overcome analytical, institutional and political barriers to greater coherence, to better coordinate existing instruments and tackle new environmental challenges as they emerge.

Government institutions have responsibilities to distribute risk management funds meaningfully and to be accountable for their choices. We took a macro-level sociological approach to understanding the role of government in managing environmental risks, and insights from micro-level psychology to examine individual-level risk-related perceptions and beliefs. Survey data from 2,068 U.K. citizens showed that lay people's funding preferences were associated positively with beliefs about responsibility and trust, yet associations with perception varied depending on risk type. Moreover, there were risk-specific differences in the funding preferences of the lay sample and 29 policymakers. A laboratory-based study of 109 participants examined funding allocation in more detail through iterative presentation of expert information. Quantitative and qualitative data revealed a meso-level framework comprising three types of decisionmakers who varied in their willingness to change funding allocation preferences following expert information: adaptors, responders, and resistors. This research highlights the relevance of integrated theoretical approaches to understanding the policy process, and the benefits of reflexive dialogue to managing environmental risks. ; Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs, EPSRC, NERC, ESRC

Poor connection between data on emerging issues and credible policy decisions continues to challenge governments, and is only likely to grow as demands on time and resources increase. Here we summarise recent efforts to integrate horizon scanning and risk prioritisation approaches to better connect emerging issues to the political discourse on environmental and food-related issues. Our categorisation of insights including potential future risks and opportunities to inform policy discussions has emerged from a structured three-year programme of horizon scanning for a UK pan-governmental futures partnership led by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Our efforts to integrate horizon scanning and risk prioritisation, utilising a qualitative weight of evidence framework, has created a systematic process for identifying all signals of potential future change with significant impact for the strategic mission and underlying values of policy actors. Our approach encourages an exploration of factors out of the control of organisations, recognising that resilience depends on the flexibility of management strategies and the preparedness to deal with a variety of unexpected outcomes. We discuss how this approach addresses key cultural and evaluative challenges that policy actors have had in embedding horizon scanning in evidence-based policy processes, and suggest further developments to build confidence in the use of horizon scanning for strategic planning.

Strategic risk appraisal (SRA) has been applied to compare diverse policy level risks to and from the environment in England and Wales. Its application has relied on expert-informed assessments of the potential consequences from residual risks that attract policy attention at the national scale. Here we compare consequence assessments, across environmental, economic and social impact categories that draw on 'expert'- and 'literature-based' analyses of the evidence for 12 public risks appraised by Government. For environmental consequences there is reasonable agreement between the two sources of assessment, with expert-informed assessments providing a narrower dispersion of impact severity and with median values similar in scale to those produced by an analysis of the literature. The situation is more complex for economic consequences, with a greater spread in the median values, less consistency between the two assessment types and a shift toward higher severity values across the risk portfolio. For social consequences, the spread of severity values is greater still, with no consistent trend between the severities of impact expressed by the two types of assessment. For the latter, the findings suggest the need for a fuller representation of socioeconomic expertise in SRA and the workshops that inform SRA output.

Effective risk management within environmental policy making requires knowledge on natural, economic and social systems to be integrated; knowledge characterised by complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity. We describe a case study in a (UK) central government department exploring how risk governance supports and hinders this challenging integration of knowledge. Forty-five semi-structured interviews were completed over a two year period. We found that lateral knowledge transfer between teams working on different policy areas was widely viewed as a key source of knowledge. However, the process of lateral knowledge transfer was predominantly informal and unsupported by risk governance structures. We argue this made decision quality vulnerable to a loss of knowledge through staff turnover, and time and resource pressures. Our conclusion is that the predominant form of risk governance framework, with its focus on centralised decision-making and vertical knowledge transfer is insufficient to support risk-based, environmental policy making. We discuss how risk governance can better support environmental policy makers through systematic knowledge management practices.

This study re-analysed 14 semi-structured interviews with policy officials from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to explore the use of a variety of regulatory instruments and different levels of risk across 14 policy domains and 18 separately named risks. Interviews took place within a policy environment of a better regulation agenda and of broader regulatory reform. Of 619 (n) coded references to 5 categories of regulatory instrument, 'command and control' regulation (n = 257) and support mechanisms (n = 118) dominated the discussions, with a preference for 'command and control' cited in 8 of the policy domains. A framing analysis revealed officials' views on instrument effectiveness, including for sub-categories of the 5 key instruments. Views were mixed, though notably positive for economic instruments including taxation, fiscal instruments and information provision. An overlap analysis explored officials' mapping of public environmental risks to instrument types suited to their management. While officials frequently cite risk concepts generally within discussions, the extent of overlap for risks of specific significance was low across all risks. Only 'command and control' was mapped to risks of moderate significance in likelihood and impact severity. These results show that policy makers still prefer 'command and control' approaches when a certainty of outcome is sought and that alternative means are sought for lower risk situations. The detailed reasons for selection, including the mapping of certain instruments to specific risk characteristics, is still developing.

There is increasing recognition that organisations, particularly in key infrastructure sectors, are potentially vulnerable to climate change and extreme weather events, and require organisational responses to ensure they are resilient and adaptive. However, detailed evidence of how adaptation is facilitated, implemented and reported, particularly through legislative mechanisms is lacking. The United Kingdom Climate Change Act (2008), introduced the Adaptation Reporting Power, enabling the Government to direct so-called reporting authorities to report their climate change risks and adaptation plans. We describe the authors' unique role and experience supporting the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) during the Adaptation Reporting Power's first round. An evaluation framework, used to review the adaptation reports, is presented alongside evidence on how the process provides new insights into adaptation activities and triggered organisational change in 78% of reporting authorities, including the embedding of climate risk and adaptation issues. The role of legislative mechanisms and risk-based approaches in driving and delivering adaptation is discussed alongside future research needs, including the development of organisational maturity models to determine resilient and well adapting organisations. The Adaptation Reporting Power process provides a basis for similar initiatives in other countries, although a clear engagement strategy to ensure buy-in to the process and research on its long-term legacy, including the potential merits of voluntary approaches, is required.

AbstractCommunicating the rationale for allocating resources to manage policy priorities and their risks is challenging. Here, we demonstrate that environmental risks have diverse attributes and locales in their effects that may drive disproportionate responses among citizens. When 2,065 survey participants deployed summary information and their own understanding to assess 12 policy‐level environmental risks singularly, their assessment differed from a prior expert assessment. However, participants provided rankings similar to those of experts when these same 12 risks were considered as a group, allowing comparison between the different risks. Following this, when individuals were shown the prior expert assessment of this portfolio, they expressed a moderate level of confidence with the combined expert analysis. These are important findings for the comprehension of policy risks that may be subject to augmentation by climate change, their representation alongside other threats within national risk assessments, and interpretations of agency for public risk management by citizens and others.

Public policy requires public support, which in turn implies a need to enable the public not just to understand policy but also to be engaged in its development. Where complex science and technology issues are involved in policy making, this takes time, so it is important to identify emerging issues of this type and prepare engagement plans. In our horizon scanning exercise, we used a modified Delphi technique [1]. A wide group of people with interests in the science and policy interface (drawn from policy makers, policy adviser, practitioners, the private sector and academics) elicited a long list of emergent policy issues in which science and technology would feature strongly and which would also necessitate public engagement as policies are developed. This was then refined to a short list of top priorities for policy makers. Thirty issues were identified within broad areas of business and technology; energy and environment; government, politics and education; health, healthcare, population and aging; information, communication, infrastructure and transport; and public safety and national security.Public policy requires public support, which in turn implies a need to enable the public not just to understand policy but also to be engaged in its development. Where complex science and technology issues are involved in policy making, this takes time, so it is important to identify emerging issues of this type and prepare engagement plans. In our horizon scanning exercise, we used a modified Delphi technique [1]. A wide group of people with interests in the science and policy interface (drawn from policy makers, policy adviser, practitioners, the private sector and academics) elicited a long list of emergent policy issues in which science and technology would feature strongly and which would also necessitate public engagement as policies are developed. This was then refined to a short list of top priorities for policy makers. Thirty issues were identified within broad areas of business and technology; energy and ...