Business Continuity Officer
Email: businesscontinuity@moray.gov.uk
Business Continuity
- What is Business Continuity?
- What is Moray Council doing about Business Continuity?
- Should my business do something about Business Continuity Management?
- Other useful websites
- How do I contact the Business Continuity Officer?
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.
Should my business do something about Business Continuity Management?
“Whilst bombs, fires and floods capture the headlines, almost 90% of business-threatening incidents are quiet catastrophes that go unreported in the media but can have a devastating impact on an organisation’s ability to function.” Business Continuity Good Practice Guidelines 2008
There are many risks to the continuation of service delivery for any organisation. It is essential for managers to take time to consider the main aspects of their business and processes which include:
- Identify key activities and staff working in these areas
- Identify service area / business activities or processes where any failure (eg of equipment, utilities, suppliers) could lead to a major business interruption
- Identify and assess all internal and external risks for these key areas
- Work out the impact of these risks
- Make plans to reduce either the likelihood or the impact of these risks
- Exercise (test) the plan to make sure that you and your staff know what to do
- Review them regularly.
Other useful websites
Business Continuity Institute http://www.thebci.org
How do I contact the Business Continuity Officer?
