I’ll be heading back to my native Manchester for next week’s 2012 Alarm Learning and Development Forum

This year’s event will bring together risk managers from across the country to celebrate ALARM’s 21st year of promoting excellence and best practice in public sector risk management.

Alarm has had an incredible year as it has continued to launch and develop products to help risk managers. It’s new guide and toolkit have received rave reviews, less than 12 months on from the launch of last year’s award-winning Benchmarking Club.

It is also a testament to Alarm that despite the economic climate this Forum will have more delegates attending than last year. It’s obvious that Alarm’s value is still appreciated by employers, who recognise that their risk managers will come back from the event better informed and more able to contribute in the workplace.

As Alarm Chairman Simon Davis told me recently, the event is “more important than ever in times like these because risk management should be about helping organisations to make informed decisions.

These are difficult times and the Forum is an ideal opportunity for risk managers to learn as much as they can in a couple of days to help them achieve that.”

Inspiration and motivation will come from the keynote speakers, author Max McKeown, and ex-RAF officer John Peters. Meanwhile the Forum’s educational workshops will give risk practitioners the opportunity to share experiences and lessons learnt from some of this year’s most high-profile events.

Alarm is again offering delegates targeted workshops focussing on housing associations, the fire service, local government, police service, central government, health & safety, and insurance. Like last year, delegates can chose workshops relating to their particular sector and/or level of expertise in order to get the most out of ehat’s on offer.

Anyway, I’ll be tweeting all the latest news and gossip from the event. I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible, but if you spot me wandering around then please come and say hello.