Risk Awareness as Key Success Factor for more Efficient Management for Local Public Administrations

Since the last 30 years public administration is dominated by the notion and realization of reforms and reengineering of objectives, outputs, and processes. Risk management is one of the private sector management tools for evaluating current and future situations for transferring to public sector; it is legally demanded and applied in the most private organizations. Although there are similarities, there are differences between both private and public manager also. Decisions under no uncertainty combined with probabilities and potential damages are often made with inappropriate knowledge or awareness about the consequences. Missing risk awareness and the traditional kind of behavior of public managers are attempts to explain the yearly deficits in the public balance sheets and the rising debt level. Regulations or models similar to private sector are not introduced for risk management, but will contribute if appropriate applied.