The National Risk Register 2023: some reasoned reflections

We provide a constructive response to the recent National Risk Register 2023, highlighting a number of generic issues. These primarily include reflections on the deployed methodology, and its possible biases. We suggest that the National Risk Register should be extended to adopt a whole systems perspective, reasoning that it is unlikely that the acute risks will each occur in an isolated way, and additionally there may be (non-risk) precursor contexts and events which might amplify many acute risks and/or nullify planned responses. We discuss some potential causes of a lack of national resilience; and some possible generic failures in acute risk response. We make a number of recommendations for consideration by HM Government.