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Guidance

Orange Book

This guidance establishes the concept of risk management.

Updates to this page

From:
Government Finance Function and HM Treasury
Published:
29 May 2013
Last updated:
29 July 2026
Show all updates

  1. The four documents: Portfolio Risk Management Guidance Orange Book Annex Risk Appetite Guidance Note Risk Management Skills and Capabilities Framework Good Practice Guide: Risk Reporting Were deleted as they were out of date, contained links to superseded guidance and no longer fully reflect the current Risk Centre of Excellence thinking and practice. Additionally, a small line was added to the top of the page including a link to the internal intranet for the Government Finance Function, OneFinance.

  2. The Central Government's Assurance Directory has been updated.

  3. Added a new attachment - A Quick Guide: Central Government's Assurance Directory. A document supporting the newly added CGAD (also attached in this document).

  4. The former Risk Management bank of questions has been replaced with the Central Government's Assurance Directory.

  5. Update to the Risk Control Framework ‘bank of questions’ excel tool 2024 on Gov.uk to incorporate updates to some of the sections as follows: a. Part 1 – extension of Orange Book risk questions; b. an addition of a new section to cover UK Sanctions; c. general update to the spreadsheet to ensure references remain valid and link to latest versions of documents; and d. minor format changes, for example, change to contents pages and change to HMTreasury logo.

  6. Added Risk Control Framework 'Bank of Questions' April 2023 document

  7. New edition of the Orange Book and a new annex 'Portfolio Risk Management Guidance Orange Book Annex' has also added.

  8. Risk Appetite Guidance Note replaced with version 2.0

  9. The 'Good Practice Guide: Risk Reporting' has been added to the collection.

  10. The 'Risk Management Skills and Capabilities Framework' publication has been added to the collection.

  11. Added Risk Appetite Guidance Note document

  12. The Orange book has been revised.

  13. Updated with Orange Book: a high-level summary.

  14. Updated Orange book.

  15. First published.

Documents

The Orange Book Management of Risk – Principles and Concepts

HTML

Orange Book: Management of risk - Principles and Concepts (PDF 462KB)

PDF, 465 KB, 64 pages

Quick Guide Central Government’s Assurance Directory

HTML

Quick Guide Central Government's Assurance Directory PDF

PDF, 1 MB, 12 pages

This file may not be suitable for users of assistive technology.

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Central Government’s Assurance Directory Spring 2026

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 1.44 MB

Details

This guidance establishes the concept of risk management and provides a basic introduction to its concepts, development and implementation of risk management processes in government organisations.

The Risk Management pages of OneFinance contain further guidance on how the Orange Book should be interpreted in practice and other guidance, tools and learning resources. These resources are available to most public sector employees at the Risk Centre of Excellence.

It should be read and used in conjunction with the other publications such as the Green Book which provides specific advice on appraisal and evaluation.

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