Public perceptions of risk are themselves increasingly seen as a potential source of risks to businesses and regulators, and indeed to governments. According to Beck's well-known ‘risk society’ thesis the man-made risks and disasters associated with modern life have transformed the way society deals with hazards and unknowns, producing a society increasingly preoccupied with manufactured risk and its control (Beck 1992; Giddens 1999a; cf. Bartrip, Briault, Huber, this volume). Public perceptions of these risks, and responsibility for managing them, have correspondingly commanded increasing political attention. Over the past few years, public perceptions of responsibility for managing risk and compensating for harm have been the subject of a series of government-sponsored reports and investigations.

A persistent theme in discussion is that problems are arising from a growing culture of risk avoidance, blaming and compensation-seeking. Concerns about the risks this presents to organisations, regulatory bodies and government surface in talk about compensation culture, excessive risk aversion and disproportionate attitudes to risk, which can be seen as concerns about the risks of public distrust, opposition to policies, costly litigation and public pressure for overly restrictive regulation (cf. Bartrip, Huber, this volume). The Better Regulation Commission (2006) for example, describes a ‘regulatory spiral’ resulting from public responses to a perceived risk. According to the Commission, when a perceived risk emerges and is publicly debated, ‘[i]nstinctively, the public looks to the Government to manage the risk’ (Better Regulation Commission 2006: 8).