Business Continuity
Business Continuity In the Community
Aims and Objectives
The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places a duty on Local Authorities to ensure that local businesses and voluntary sector organisations in their Administrative Area have the opportunity and tools to prepare and plan for the recovery from any potential disruption.
This guidance aims to provide a general overview on the subject and is not intended to replace detailed guidance and planning specific to your business. You should consider whether you need to obtain this.
What is Business Continuity?
Business Continuity Management (BCM) is a management process that helps manage the risks to the smooth running of an organisation or a delivery of a service, ensuring it can continue to operate to the extent required in the event of a disruption.
Fact
- 80% of businesses affected by a major incident close within a month.
- 90% of businesses that lose data from a disaster are forced to shut within 2 years.
- 58% of UK organisations were disrupted by September 11th. Of those disrupted 12 % were seriously affected.
- Nearly 1 in 5 businesses suffer a major disruption every year.
What is the role of Stirling Council's Emergency Planning Unit in Business Continuity?
Stirling Council's Emergency Planning Unit can offer advice and support in developing Business Continuity plans, but cannot prepare the plans for you. You are best placed to know your business and it's critical processes.
We will offer advice free of charge, and assist by giving details of useful web-sites and further reading to enable you to develop your plan. If more specific advice and/or assistance is required there maybe a charge requested.
Why Business Continuity?
Without effective business continuity planning a natural or man made disaster could result in any one of the following:
- A complete failure of your business.
- Loss of income.
- Loss of reputation and or loss of customers.
- Financial, legal and Regulatory penalties.
- Human resource issues.
- An impact on Insurance payments.
You may already have an effective plan, but are your staff trained in implementing it?
When was the plan last reviewed and updated?
When was the last time it was tested?
The Business Continuity Process
- Understand your business and key business objectives.
- Identify key activities and staff working within those areas.
- Identify single points of failure.
- Identify the potential threats.
- Assess the risk both internal and external.
- Calculate the impact.
- Review the results.
- Plan to reduce the likelihood and/or impact.
- Train your staff.
- Exercise the plan.
- Audit the results and review regularly.
Examples of Business Continuity Risks
- Have you considered financial/legal/ regulatory penalties that could be imposed if you fail to provide a critical service which you are contracted to do?
- Consider how long each of your critical services could continue during a prolonged utility loss.
- Now think about a loss of utilities lasting 24 hours or longer.
- Which of your critical services would be jeopardised if your facility was evacuated for a week/month with all access denied?
- How many staff would be needed to continue to cover critical tasks and how would you accommodate them?
- How would you continue to operate if a large number of staff were absent due to ill health e.g. a flu epidemic?
- Have you an alternative building in which to work effectively? Is this sufficient? Can staff work from home?
- Do you need access to any services not currently available at your temporary site?
- Do you use any special software or stationery such as forms? How long can you manage without and how long would it take to replenish stocks?
Your plan should answer all the above questions and others.
What is the Business Continuity Planning Process?
To review the plans that are currently in place, if any, prioritise the order or criticality of services. Start the review with the most critical services and work through all services that require a Business Continuity Plan.
If you have no existing plans start by listing, in priority order, key services. Prepare and document alternative arrangements, and workarounds, so that each of these priority services could continue in all circumstances, including prolonged power failure, lack of access to office buildings, loss of key staff through accident or illness etc.
1st Identify the need to plan
- Identify all critical services and prioritise them.
- Prepare a list of all known risks.
- Plot each identified risk on a graph of impact x likelihood using a 1-5 measurement.
- Decide how much risk you can prevent or reduce and set the risk appetite for how much your business can take. Plan for the remainder.
2nd Prepare your plan
Prepare a generic plan of actions to enable you to continue each of your priority services, which also details specific actions for different types of risk and different services.
3rd Test your plan
- Discuss your plan with all relevant employees involved in key services and identify any training requirements.
- Simulate a theoretical disaster and test your plan.
Business Continuity Management
Business Continuity Management is just as important for small companies as it is for large corporations, if your business is to survive disruption.
Building in Business Continuity and making it part of the way you run your business, rather than having to "firefight" any emergency, helps prepare you to offer "Business as usual" in the quickest possible time.
"Business Continuity Management (BCM) is a holistic management process that identifies potential business impacts that threaten an organisation and provides a framework for building resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value creating activities."
Contact Details:
During Office Hours
Tel : 01786 44 3186
Fax : 01786 44 3292
Email: brightd@stirling.gov.uk
Business Continuity in the Community Leaflet
Business Continuity Institute Guidelines Document
