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Business Continuity Advice

This section provides information for businesses and voluntary organisations about business continuity management (BCM) - ensuring that your organisation can handle an emergency, continue to function, and can recover effectively afterwards.

The Civil Contingencies Secretariat has developed, in partnership with stakeholders, a business continuity toolkit to help the commercial and voluntary sector implement BCM.

• Business Continuity Management Toolkit [PDF, opens in a new window]

The tool kit is best viewed in Acrobat Reader version 8 to download the latest version of Acrobat reader please visit the Adobe website [External website]

The business continuity management standard (BS25999)

BS25999 is a code of practice that takes the form of guidance and recommendations. It establishes the process, principles and terminology of business continuity management (BCM), providing a basis for understanding, developing and implementing business continuity within an organisation and to provide confidence in business-to-business and business-to-customer dealings.

The British Standard on Business Continuity Management (BCM), BS25999, defines BCM as 'a holistic management process that identifies potential threats to an organisation and the impacts to operations that those threats, if realised, might cause, and which provides a framework for building organizational resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value creating activities.'

It provides a comprehensive set of controls based on BCM best practice and covers the whole BCM lifecycle, which is illustrated below.

BS 25999 will be published in two parts. BS 25999-1:2006, the Code of practice for business continuity management was published in November 2006. This has been developed by practitioners throughout the global community, including the Civil Contingencies Secretariat. Copies of this can be purchased from the BSI website[External website]

BS 25999-2:2007 will specify the requirements for achieving certification which will help ensure that business continuity capability is appropriate to the size and complexity of an organisation. Publication of part 2 is expected in autumn 2007. Following this the UK Accreditation Service (UKAS) will work hard to ensure that there is an accreditation scheme available to those bodies offering third-party accreditation to Part 2. Usually the reason for obtaining an independent evaluation is to confirm that it meets specific requirements in order to reduce risks. Accreditation by UKAS means that certification bodies have been assessed against internationally recognised standards to demonstrate their competence, impartiality and performance capability.

Business Continuity under the Civil Contingencies Act

The Civil Contingencies Act [External website] requires local responders (eg. emergency services, local authorities) to maintain Business Continuity Plans to ensure that they can continue to exercise their functions in the event of an emergency so far as is reasonably practicable. The Act also requires local authorities to provide advice and assistance to businesses and voluntary organisations in relation to business continuity management.

Further information

• The Case Studies section includes examples from businesses and voluntary organisations which have been designed to help you learn from the approaches adopted by others

• Pandemic Influenza Checklist for Businesses and organisations [PDF 129KB, 4 pages] To assist businesses and other organisations in developing and reviewing plans for a flu pandemic, the Government has published a checklist identifying important and specific activities which organisations can do to prepare.

• Business Continuity Management for Fuel Shortages: to assist businesses and other organisations in developing and reviewing plans for a disruption to fuel supplies, the Government has published short guidance and checklists identifying important and specific activities which organisations can do to prepare [PDF 11 pages, 118KB]

• The Cabinet Office Revised Guidance on Contingency Planning for a Possible Influenza Pandemic [PDF, 260KB, 16 pages] provides guidance for all organisations. (Revised in July 2006)

• The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) Business Continuity Survey 2008 Report [PDF 429KB, 20 pages]. The CMI's survey report, which was again supported this year by CCS in the Cabinet Office. Although the report shows a situation where organisations are taking steps to improve their business continuity arrangements, for example in relation to the impact of an influenza pandemic and supply chain resilience, it also shows that there is much more to be done.
  • Archive copies of The 2007 CMI Survey are available here [PDF 561KB, 20 pages]
  • Archive copies of The 2006 CMI Survey are available here [PDF 539KB, 16 pages]

• This website allows you to access sources of regional and local advice, as well as other sources of support on business continuity.

• You can get more detailed information on other civil protection topics on UK Resilience [External website].

Training

• The Emergency Planning College (EPC) [External website] is the leading provider of training for emergency preparedness, attracting delegates with responsibility for preventing, planning for, responding to or recovering from a major incident. The EPC runs courses on business continuity as well as other aspects of civil protection:
  • Business Continuity Management 1 - Introduction to Business Continuity Management Methodology [External website]
  • Business Continuity Management 2 - Developing & Embedding Your BCM Programme [External website]
  • Business Continuity Management 3 - Maintaining a BCM Culture & Addressing the Complexity Issues of Supply Chains [External website]

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