Business Continuity Guidance for Businesses
Denial of site or geographical area
Scenario a): No notice denial of access to a key site and immediate surrounding area for several months, if not years.
Scenario b): Denial of access to a large single urban area, including key sites, for seven days.
Underpinning risks:
Scenario a) This scenario could occur under several scenarios which would vary in duration and geographical coverage.
One example may be the accidental or deliberate release of a harmful substance. Duration of denial of access would depend on the nature of the contaminant and would be heavily reliant on responder organisations returning the affected area to use but could be anything from a few months to several years.
Scenario b) This scenario may occur in a large flooding event.
Loss of site could also result from:
- Emergency services cordon around the site of an emergency
- Industrial accident and subsequent clean-up operation
BCM implications:
Flooding:
- Refer to Environment Agency guidance on flooding [External website] (including maps showing areas at risk):
- Assess the risk of flood when selecting new premises
- Flood impact mitigation may be possible. Where possible, position generators, servers, file storage etc on floors above the level of a possible flood.
- Flood likelihood reduction may be possible - e.g. regularly clear or re-engineer drainage.
Other Damage/destruction:
- Ensure staff evacuation plans are in place. Consider how staff will be evacuated to a fall-back location (if possible), transported home or to a place of safety. Business should be aware of UK Government guidance on Evacuation and Shelter that provides information on the process in the event of an emergency and which may be relevant to members of staff.
- Consider call-off contracts for transportation away from the affected area.
- Ensure that corporate data is protected against this scale of event (e.g. off-site backups).
- Consider plans for salvage of remaining assets and records - which may include a priority system.
- Depending on severity, staff may be killed or injured
- Prevention and mitigation measures may be taken, e.g. fire breaks, removal of flammable materials, detection and suppression systems, smoke management.
- When deciding where to locate back-up sites for business continuity purposes the susceptibility to the same risks faced by the primary site should be considered e.g. is it likely to be in the same cordon area?
- Consideration should also be given to a situation where the police advise confinement to buildings - an 'invacuation plan' may be required.
- The majority of staff may be outside the area when it is denied - will your organisation be able to continue critical activities following denial of all physical assets in that area? Can your corporate data be recovered?
- Decontamination of buildings/infrastructure in the event of release of harmful substance should also be taken in to consideration. Refer to the Government Decontamination website
- Plans for working from home may be a useful aid to continuity.
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