Contact:
  • Emergency Management Unit
  • Address:
    Guildhall, High Street 
    Bath BA1 5AW
  • E-mail:
    emu@bathnes.gov.uk
  • Telephone:
    01225 477544
  • Fax:
    01225 477660
  • Minicom:
    n/a
  • Page Updated:
    22/11/2008
  • Author:
    EMU
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Civil Emergencies - Business Continuity Advice

WHAT IS BUSINESS CONTINUITY?

Business Continuity Management is the anticipation of an interruption or incident and the process of planning to ensure that your critical business functions continue in a crisis or emergency and that the remainder are recovered in a rehearsed, controlled and phased manner.

What would you do if your business premises or office were not available, all your paperwork had been destroyed and the computer network and servers were offline?

Doing nothing is not acceptable as we all  provide essential services for the community many of which become more critical during major incident or emergency situations and it is essential that they continue.

Business Continuity methodology ensures that the services we provide can cope even in a worst case scenario and pro-active approach to Business Continuity in advance of an incident will benefit everybody.

WHY IS THE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT UNIT INVOLVED?

The new Government Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places a responsibility on Local Authorities to promote Business Continuity.

Business Continuity planning, as a proactive rather than reactive approach, is a natural extension of our specialist work in identifying the types of emergency that can occur in the local community and producing plans to deal with them. 

The Emergency Management Unit has a responsibility to consider and objectively plan for the impact an incident would have across the whole organisation. We have a broad working knowledge of the Council which coupled with direct access to the Chief Executive, is essential for crisis management and Business Continuity within the Council’s overall strategy.

The Cabinet Office through its Civil Contingencies Secretariat  recommends that all Councils use their Emergency Management resource as a facilitator to review and update their Business Continuity plans so that they are ready for any major disaster.

Our role is to:
Implement, develop and guide the Council’s strategy on Business Continuity.
Encourage corporate ownership of Business Continuity activities.
Develop an effective cross-service partnership approach to Business Continuity.
Ensure effective liaison and consultation across service areas.
Assign criticality and priority to service reviews.
Evaluate and review the Council’s Business Continuity arrangements.
Identify and act upon the key areas for action.
Identify corporate training needs.
Implement and apply Central Government Standards for Emergency Management in so far as they extend to Business Continuity.
Apply the principles of Best Value to Business Continuity Management as it is an opportunity to review the organisation's processes, improve procedures and practices, and increase resilience to interruption and loss.

 

The terrorist attack in London on July 7th 2005 involved 4 separate incident locations. Each incident location became a crime scene and large areas around the scenes were made inaccessible for several days whilst police forensic investigations were undertaken. Business in the vicinity of each location was affected.

The Buncefield fuel storage explosion on 11 December 2005, highlighted the need for business continuity planning. Companies in a wide area around the incident were affected and recovery is still taking place.

If your business premise was inaccessible for an indeterminate period of time WOULD IT SURVIVE?

A considerable amount of energy and hard work has been spent by us to ensure the Authority’s Business Continuity.

Significant benefits have accrued from the investment which has been made:

These include standardisation of the desktop personal computers and applications, the rationalisation of software systems requiring support, and the development of a comprehensive asset register, all resulting in better communication and a sound technology base on which to build for the future.

THE FUEL CRISIS

WERE YOU CONFIDENT THAT YOU COULD MAINTAIN BUSINESS CONTINUITY?

WHAT DID YOU DO DURING THE FUEL CRISIS?

We were involved from the outset within the authority's Crisis Management Team in the pro-active rather than reactive planning to ensure that our critical and essential services continued within the worsening crisis.

If the crisis had continued we would have had plans on how to quickly recover the suspended non-essential services within a controlled and phased recovery period.

If another crisis had happened we would have been able to put business continuity plans into place, control resources and  ensure continuity of  services we provide to the public and community at large.

Government Check List for Flu Pandemic Business Continuity

The Government has recently published a useful check list for business continuity planning in the event of a Flu Pandemic. This can also be used as a basic template for general business continuity.

This check list can be accessed through the following link

Pandemic Influenza Checklist for Businesses (PDF 129KB)

The Department for Educational Skills has released it's guidance for pandemic flu which is aimed at School Employers, Governing Bodies, Head Teachers and Children's Services Employers and Managers. This publication can be found at:

http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/emergencies/planning/flupandemic//

WHAT ELSE HAVE WE PLANNED?

To help ensure that the Council could cope with any disruption to service delivery or similar related problems a generator has been installed at the Guildhall, Bath.

Regular live tests are undertaken so that any operational problems, can be identified and corrected so that we can cope with an emergency or major incident, as a power loss could occur at any time. It is essential that the Guildhall and the critical systems located there, which also serve other locations in the Council, are fully protected by the generator and other backup equipment to ensure continuation of services.

Generator connection points have been fitted to all Bath & North East Somerset's Elderly Persons Homes so that in the event of major power loss we can still provide the required standard of care to the residents.

Security and back-up of Council IT is being upgraded.

A Community Emergency Guidance project has been initiated to focus on resources available to communities throughout Bath & North East Somerset to promote preparedness and resilience.

Should you require more information, or have any comments to make to the Emergency Management Unit please contact us.

A Business Continuity plan recognises and minimises risk, quantifies the impact of an incident or emergency and ensures speedy and effective recovery afterwards.