Business continuity planning in FE/HE

BackgroundDriversChallengesReal life

Background Through risk assessment and control, reduces the

likelihood and/or impact of disruptions affecting priority activities

Evolved from IT disaster recovery although BCM is applicable across all parts of an organisation

Recognised primarily in ISO 22301 and also other standards including Crisis Management and Resilience

One of many contributors to operational/organisational resilience.

Ian Dowie Bouncebackability

Why bother?

Reduce downtime Mitigate some of the risks being faced Protect and enhance reputation Easier to think about possible solutions outwith the heat of the

moment Good practice Improve the student experience

Expectation? Cost of not doing anything?

Approach Identifying and prioritising key activities (might by cyclical) What resources do we need for them to operate? People, Premises, Systems, Equipment Internal or External Suppliers? Could we do it with less following a disruption? Would we need

more? When do we need it back up and running following a disruption

and to what level?

How this can be achieved across the organisation More demanding timescales will generally be more expensive Conflicts or Cooperation when prioritising at senior level

Possible challenges Buy in Resources Very diverse and very specialised organisations Apathy Others?

Incident

Full teaching due to commence Monday 10th

September 0900 after successful soft launch.

Burst 27mm pipe on top floor at c0630 Escalated and pipe isolated but significant

damage in meantime Safety first Impact assessment – water damage/power

lost/teaching space/Court event that evening

Key elements Great performance from team on the ground Supported from senior colleagues via regular conference

calls Early internal escalation Decision making and communicating Prioritising and reviewing Flexible approach Work over previous summer with timetabling to model

scenarios. Impact over Cause

Follow up MI team met until Wednesday when power restored, allowing

scheduled teaching to resume as normal from 0900 Thursday, with only a very small number of classes rescheduled into following weeks

Following that, key areas involved in debrief considering: What went well

What could have been better

What might we do differently in the future

Report and Recommendations submitted to Executive

Reflections Importance of having good people at the scene

Shielding key operators from questions/requests from staff to allow them to focus on job at hand

Video wall became a key hub for info on rescheduled events

Fast response once MI team informed

Communications worked well showing that good messaging now better than perfect messaging later

Overall the response was very positive

Business continuity planning in FE/HE