Business Continuity
What is Business Continuity?
It’s purpose is to manage the risks to an organisation, or delivery of a service, by ensuring that it can continue to operate in the event of a disruption.
The risks to a business or organisation could be from the external environment (power outages, severe weather, etc.) or from within an organisation (systems failure, loss of key staff, etc.).
Business Continuity is a key management process and is defined as “ a holistic management process that identifies potential business impacts that threaten an organisation and provides a framework for building resilience, with the capability for an effective response, that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value creating activities.” (Business Continuity Institute definition http://www.thebci.org )
What is Moray Council doing about Business Continuity?
Under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, all local authorities are designated Category 1 responders, along with services such as the Police, Fire Service, Ambulance Service, SEPA and the NHS.
One duty under the Act is that these Category 1 responders must develop plans to ensure that they can continue to deliver their critical services during any incident, disruption or emergency.
During an emergency, the Council may have to recover from disruptions within their own business as well as supporting the community in their recovery efforts.
Moray Council has appointed a Business Continuity Officer (BCO) who will co-ordinate the collation of Council data, production of Council business continuity plans and testing of the plans to ensure they will be effective.
Part of the role of the BCO is to ensure that all Council services identify their “critical” services, so that in the event of any disruption, these essential services continue to be delivered to the community of Moray.
Critical services are those that are heavily relied on by the community or are essential to internal operations within the Council.
Other Useful Websites
Business Continuity Institute http://www.thebci.org