Policy overview
Business continuity is about planning how to maintain critical parts of the organisation in the event of:
- an incident
- a major issue
- a disruptive event
We recognise that our people are crucial to enabling us to function. Their resilience helps us maintain services and get the organisation back on its feet, both during and after a crisis.
This policy sets out the priorities concerning our employees and workers during an event that requires business continuity management.
Principles
Managers will ensure we are ready if we need to invoke business continuity plans by:
- considering the resources that we need to respond to any disruptive event
- carrying out an inventory of employee skills not utilised within their existing roles to enable redeployment
- putting in place appropriate process mapping and documentation to allow employees to undertake unfamiliar roles
- carrying out multi-skill training of individuals
- considering the use of third-party support, backed by contractual agreements
- considering the geographical separation of individuals or groups with core skills. This will enable us to spread out the ability to undertake specific roles across the authority
Service disruption
Incidents, major issues or disruptive events that can result in service disruption or closure include:
- declared civil or national emergency
- acts of terrorism
- loss of staff (for example, due to a communicable, contagious or pandemic disease)
- loss of access to work premises (for example, due to fire, asbestos or flooding)
- loss of utilities for any reason
- loss of transport or closure of transport infrastructure
- loss of or limited IT systems or telecommunications
- loss of key suppliers or contractor support
- strike action, either by our employees or others in vital service functions that support us
- severe adverse weather conditions affecting employees' ability to get to work
This list is not exhaustive. It provides examples of events that managers should consider when preparing for disruption to service service and may include one or more of the above happening concurrently.
