A study of the performance of risk and vulnerability assessments by Swedish Public Agencies

Risk and vulnerability assessments (RVA) are vital components of the work conducted by public agencies at different levels, as part of the processes for governing and managing risks in the society. In Sweden, public agencies at all levels are required by legislation to perform risk and vulnerability assessments within their respective area of responsibility. The present paper presents a study of how Swedish municipalities, county administrative boards and national authorities work with RVAs, with a special focus on three aspects of such assessments that are highlighted in the legislation: vital societal functions, critical dependencies, and capability assessment. The main data collection technique was semi-structured interviews and a total of 25 actors were included and interviewed. The goal was to achieve a good representation of the different actors that perform RVAs. Thus 5 national authorities, 5 county administrative boards, and 15 municipalities were chosen in order to obtain a representative functional distribution (in terms of national authorities responsible for different sectors), geographic distribution as well as size distribution. The study shows that there is rather large variety of approaches, perspectives and views adopted by different actors, all with different advantages and drawbacks. It is argued that the findings of the study can be used to improve the RVA-practices of public authorities