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Business Continuity Management Team- Update

Posted on 31 March 2011.

Business Continuity Management Team- Update

Following on from our first exercise in October, Steps to Work have taken the next steps to implement the BS2999 Standard across our organisation.

Excercise and Audit- A timetime of our achievements 

29.03.10 – an exercise at Townend house was undertaken to test the business continuity management system.  A scenario based on a water leak affecting normal services was used to test the communications protocol, BCMT understanding of their roles, decision making process.   This exercise identified tweaks to the system such as contents of crash boxes, review of evacuation procedures to complement the business continuity plan, contingency plans for various activities such as the EPOS machine.

An exercise report was compiled and discussed at SMT.  An evaluation by those involved was undertaken and compared with previous exercise.  All areas showed improvements and all involved members of the BCMT stated they felt they knew and understood more about what was required.  Quote from CEO evaluation was “incident  (exercise) ran as outlined and all staff undertook their roles effectively”. Quote from H&S officer evaluation was “communication was very good”.

All information was then used to develop a new action plan which SMT agreed on 31.03.11.  This will be co-ordinated by MI Manager and progress reviewed at SMT at regular intervals.

Risk Assessment

A risk assessment of the entire operation should be used to enable the organisation to understand the threats and vulnerabilities relating to its critical activities as well as its supporting resources and suppliers. It would need to understand the Impact on the organisation should the identified threat actually materialise.

Business Continuity Strategy

Based upon the outcomes of the above, the organisation would define an overall strategy that describes how it will respond to and recover from any disruptions affecting its critical activities, and how it will manage its own resources, as well as its relationships with suppliers and other relevant third parties.

Steps to Work will develop, document and implement specific Business Continuity Plans in order to provide a response to each envisaged threat (risk) and to enable it to continue with its critical business operations based on its BC strategy. This requires the documenting of an overall Incident Response Structure which will include any requirements on third parties, as well as communication planning.

Exercising and Reviewing the BCPs

Once the Plans are in place it is then be necessary to test and validate them through realistic exercises of the arrangements so as to ensure that they meet the organisation’s requirements. The scale and frequency of such exercises will depend on the levels of threats posed, as well as the risks inherent in the exercises themselves. Each exercise would be followed by a review to analyse the results, ensure that the plans are kept up to date and make improvements wherever necessary.