UK Resilience

Chapter 1 - Introduction

A disaster can strike any organisation, large or small. It can arrive in the shape of storm, flood, fire, a terrorist bomb, action by pressure groups, product contamination or simply a quality control failure that allows sub-standard goods onto the market. If the incident is large enough it will put the business out of action for a short or long period. Whether the business recovers or not and whether it is still operating 12 months later depends on what advance planning has taken place.

This means action before and not after disaster strikes.

It has been assessed that around half of all businesses experiencing a disaster and which have no effective plans for recovery fail within the following 12 months. To stay in business after disaster strikes requires careful pre-planning. To believe that you will easily be able to sort things out on the day will mean that your business, you and your employees will unnecessarily suffer. So a basic plan is essential and the scale of this plan will be related to the size of your business. The smaller shop holder will have a plan which can be written on one piece of paper, whereas major enterprises will have comprehensive arrangements.

There is no universal solution. However all organisations, big and small, will need to go through the same basic process to produce their plan.

The biggest threats to most organisations are from fire, theft, fraud or vandalism. Serious storms, floods or water escape from other sources can also have a major impact, especially if premises are in low-lying land near a river and important equipment, machinery or computers are sited on the lower floors. Some business are at risk from terrorists or pressure groups because of their products or because of their links with certain overseas countries. And all premises and employees are at risk, albeit tiny, from falling aircraft, chemical or nuclear pollution, disease or personal attack.

There are very few major organisations today who do not have some form of plan to deal with the consequences of an unwanted incident. However there are also very few smaller businesses which do have an effective plan. By not planning businesses, staff and shareholders are exposed to quite unnecessary risks and jobs are threatened. Planning makes a substantial difference to the possibility of surviving an incident. Indeed any organisation which undertakes a logical, structured view of the threats facing it and then works out how to respond to them has already reduced the impact if disaster strikes. If the organisation also trains and exercises its people in implementing these plans it has an excellent chance of surviving the disaster.

What should the plan consider?

If you believe that any of the disasters mentioned above cannot under any circumstances affect your business then you need not read on. If, however, you are concerned about the consequences for you personally, your business, your employees and your customers if disaster does strike, you can begin to form a contingency plan by starting with the things you can do now which will mitigate the consequences of a disaster.

Assessment of your present position

Before making any plan it is sensible to review your loss prevention measures to see if you can spot any flaws in your organisation. Correcting these will automatically reduce the impact of a disaster as well as reducing your vulnerability to crime. Indeed, a number of insurers are now starting to insist on this "risk management" approach as a prerequisite for insurance cover. The areas which you may need to think about are:

Security

• Physical security of your perimeter at all times, day and night and at weekends.
• Locks, television surveillance and intruder alarms.
• Arrangements for security of valuable items such as merchandise, paintings, electronic equipment and anything which by its nature is of vital importance to the operation of the business.
• Security of personal belongings of your employees.
• Vulnerability to pressure group activity. Implementation of a "clear desk" policy.

The addition of a public address system can be invaluable under certain conditions, such as a bomb threat situation.

Advice on many of these security considerations is available free from your local Police Crime Prevention Officer or from specialist firms of security consultants.

Fire

• Identification of the most significant fire hazards and how these can be removed or reduced.
• Provision of fire alarms incorporating automatic fire detection using smoke and heat detectors for general areas and aspirating detection systems for critical areas.
• Provision of portable fire extinguishing equipment and fire suppression systems, including automatic sprinklers.
• Identification of escape routes; ensure they are kept clear of obstructions.
• Improving passive fire precautions e.g. adding fire resistant doors.
• Means of containing fire-fighting water to avoid pollution or contamination of unaffected premises or areas.
• Training of staff in fire awareness, sounding the alarm, evacuation procedures and in the use of fire extinguishing equipment.
• Maintenance of existing fire precaution measures, particularly those detailed in any fire certificate.

The local Fire Brigade will be able to provide advice on all these issues, as will Fire Risk Consultants.

Services

• Maintenance of power supplies to essential services.
• Provision of telephones and internal communications so that all personnel can be readily contacted.
• Proximity of valued stock, papers, records and other items to water or heating pipes which might be damaged.

Computers

• Prevention of unauthorised access to programs and data, including access by hackers.
• Regular backing up of information and storage of backed up information away from its normal work place in a secure, fire-protected environment.
• Security of computer and system manuals and other unique information.
• Control of passwords and data links.

Insurance

• Full appreciation of extent of insurance policies, covering such areas as maximum indemnity period, extent of cover, exclusions, limits of liability, business interruption, consequential loss, legal liability to staff and public.
• A survey of the site and a set of records, with photographs of particular items, will be invaluable when dealing with insurers and loss adjusters and will greatly assist with repair and reinstatement. Ensure that one up to date set is kept off site.

Salvage

• Identification of all articles of value, including business records, which need to be saved if at all possible in event of a disaster, with arrangements to protect them in a secure area after recovery.
• Identification of means to minimise damage to stock and artefacts by smoke or fire-fighting water.

A number of salvage and recovery specialist companies can offer general and specific advice as well as provide a recovery service.