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The Civil Contingencies Act and Regulations requires Category 1 responders to maintain plans to ensure that they can continue to perform their functions in the event of an emergency, so far as is reasonably practicable.

Business Continuity Management (BCM)

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 specifies duties which must be carried out by emergency services and local authorities in order to contribute to an integrated emergency response to major incidents.

One section of these duties is that local authorities must have adequate measures in place to maintain essential services and subsequently recover from the effects of significant disruption to normal working.  This process of increasing the local authority resilience is known as Business Continuity Management.

Business Continuity Management is a management led process that helps identify and prepare for potential disruptions to the smooth running of the organisation.  BCM is not a one off project it is an ongoing area of work the principles of which should be embedded into the very core of each of the organisation's department.

The short-term objective of Business Continuity Management is to ensure that during disruption at least critical services may continue uninterrupted.  The longer-term objective of Business Continuity Management is to ensure that the organisation can resume normal services as quickly as possible in the aftermath of any disruption/ emergency event.  The Civil Contingencies Act, 2004 and its accompanying guidance highlights that all emergency responders should not only undertake and develop Business Continuity Plans, but should maintain regulatory compliance by undertaking the following:

  • Risk Assessment through understanding of each department (Business Impact Assessment).
  • Exercising of Disaster Recovery Plans
  • Training of Key Staff (especially those with key business continuity roles).
  • Review and Maintain Business Continuity Plans
  • Publication of Business Continuity Plans

The main purpose of the BCM process is to ensure continuity of service delivery following an unplanned disruption to normal working.

Definition:

"BCM is a management process that helps manage the risks to the smooth running of an organisation or delivery of a service, ensuring that the business can continue in the event of a disruption. These risks could be from the external environment or from within an organisation"

"Category 1 responders to maintain plans to ensure that they can continue to perform their functions in the event of an emergency... to be able to maintain their own crisis response capabilities and to continue to deliver critical aspects of their day-to-day functions."

Civil Contingencies Act 2004

Scope

The risks covered are those likely to result in a sudden and serious disruption of services, e.g.

  • Damage or denial of access to premises including contents.
  • Loss of critical services such as IT and telecommunications.
  • Loss of a public utility.
  • Failure of key suppliers/partners
  • Loss of specialist equipment
  • Disruption to transport or the road network.
  • Industrial action or other unavailability of staff 

Principles

The key principles of Business Continuity are:

  • Reduction/avoidance of identified risks
  • Planning for service recovery should service disruption occur
  • Development of recovery plans which ensure continuity of services in the event of an emergency or disaster. 

Business Continuity for Small and Medium Businesses

The Civil Contingencies Act places an additional duty on local authorities to promote the importance of business continuity to small and medium local businesses in order to improve economic resilience.

Did you know?

On average, a typical company can expect to experience a MAJOR disruption to the availability of their office and business systems once every four years.  The actual nature, duration and cause of the disruption varies but in 2004:

  • 41% of companies suffered from a loss of IT functionality.
  • 25% lost telecommunications
  • 18% experienced disruption caused by flood or storm damage
  • 11% completely lost access to their site.
                                                               "The Chartered Management Institute 2005"

For more information on Business Continuity please refer to the Weblinks.

Last Updated: 15 April 2009

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