The Business Continuity Management System identifies potential threats to the University and the impact that those threats, if realised, could have upon its operation. It provides a framework for building organisational resilience, comprising a business continuity network, business continuity plans to respond to disruptions an exercise programme to validate them.
Why do we do it?
- We want to protect our people, our research and our reputation
- Incidents impact on student experience and research quality
- Business continuity reduces costly disruption and protects priority activities
- Effective incident response requires a resilient mindset, plans in place and rehearsals conducted
Why is business continuity planning important?
Disruptions take many forms, including cyber-attack, fire, flooding and disease epidemics. The better prepared we are, the less damaging the impact will be on our people, our research, our reputation and our finances. While there are many competing priorities here at the University, time spent in preparation for a disruption is time well spent.
How do we do it?
The University uses the Business Continuity Institute Good Practice Guidelines as its guidance, in turn drawn from Internationals Standards - primarily ISO 22301:2019. Business Continuity Management System (BCMS) is the term used to describe an ongoing business continuity programme. It should be viewed as a continuous lifecycle, always a work in progress, and subject to regular review. It comprises the following professional practices:
- PP1 Establishing the Business Continuity Management System – outlines how the programme will be designed and implemented
- PP2 Embracing Business Continuity – enables the University's constituent divisions, departments, faculties and professional services to improve business continuity culture over time
- PP3 Analysis – comprises the two techniques used to analyse business continuity requirements: business impact analysis and risk assessment
- PP4 Solutions Design – specifies how the University's constituent divisions, departments, faculties and professional services will meet their respective business continuity requirements
- PP5 Enabling Solutions – outlines the methodology to implement agreed solutions and develops the response structure and business continuity plans to ensure that solutions can be deployed
- PP6 Validation – confirms that the established Business Continuity Management System meets the objectives set out in the policy
