Pay and rewards frequently account for some thirty five percent or more of total costs in an organisation. Ever since the collapse of Northern Rock in 2007 much political, media and practitioner interest has been given to the issue of reward management . This debate has focussed on the role reward structures were perceived to have played in causing excessive risk taking in the financial services industry and the role this risk taking played in the problems that still continue in that sector. However research by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development and Cranfield School of Management has identified that the focus on the financial services sector this was potentially distracting attention from a much wider collection of reward risks that need managing across all sectors.