SOME risks facing Dorset Council may not have been dealt with thoroughly enough and in some cases make little sense – according to an independent expert.

The council's own figures show that at the start of the year some risks reviews were not on target and some delays had been getting longer.

Audit and Governance committee co-opted member Simon Roach said the council was facing what he described as "extreme risks" over education funding, business continuity and the dangers of a cyber attack on the authority's IT systems which it needed to prioritise.

He said the council's statement on cyberattack was "nonsensical" and was self-referring, telling the reader very little.

Mr Roach said the council needed to properly understand what the risks are and what was being done about them in language which made sense to most people.

He asked for those responsible for the areas of extreme risk to come to the committee and explain what the current risks are and what the strategy, or action plan, is to address them.

Committee chairman Cllr Richard Biggs said that needed to happen once the new council was in position after the May elections. He agreed that the wording over the cyber attack risk made no sense and had probably resulted from a cut and paste exercise, rather than trying to properly explain. Cllr Biggs said much of the other wording around education funding would also make no sense to the general public.

Marshwood councillor Simon Christopher said he would also like to see a discussion about the pressures on adult services and children's services, and in particular about falling school rolls in some areas.

Blackmore Vale councillor Pauline Batstone backed the need to keep risk strategies up to date, especially for the council's computer systems, but admitted that she too had failed to make any sense of the cyber-attack statement.

At a previous committee Cllr Biggs had said that he was confident the council teams were well-placed to deal with the most serious eventualities and that some of the delays were being tackled.

In mid-January the overall level of risks assessments overdue stood at 59%, but by mid-March this was at 10 per cent overdue following renewed efforts.

The committee heard that for six months the council had been without anyone to lead specificially on risk management, but now had a risk management and reporting officer in place.

Dr David Bonner, who heads the deparment, said a "minor mountain" had been climbed to improve the situation since December, but acknowldged there was still more work to be completed.

Dorset Council's risk impact assessment rates the risks to the authority in five categories, 1 being the lowest, 5 the highest.

In the top category is multiple deaths of employees in the council's care; events which could lead to the resignation of the chief executive and/or council leader and financial loss of over £10million.

Lower down in the ranking comes major disruption to council services for more than 48 hours; adverse comment in the Press and serious injury to employees or others in the council's care.

At the bottom of the table is day to day operational problems and financial loss of less than £100,000.