A Business Continuity plan is where you identify parts of your organisation that you cannot afford to lose and planning how to maintain them if an incident were to occur. Experience has shown that people who had Business Continuity plans in place were quicker to recover from emergencies than those who had failed to prepare such plans. 

To get started on your business continuity arrangements, look at simple plan and full plan templates and other resources below.  

Top tips!

• Consider your critical resources, what would you do if you lost power, telephony or if your staff were unable to work?
• Make a list of your critical services and how you would continue to provide them in the event of disruptions.
• Identify the maximum length of time that you can manage a disruption to each of your key products and services. 
• Think about your suppliers, if they failed how would that affect your business?

If you have any pets or livestock that would be affected, see our Animals Prepared advice.

If you are worried about security or malicious threats, see our Malicious Threats advice page.

If you’ve got any questions about Business Continuity then our FAQs should help, but please also contact us if required

Once you have done this, save it in more than one location and keep a paper copy handy. Regularly check back to make sure the plans you’ve made are still suitable. This handy 10 minute checklist will help with this process.

Once you have a plan, think about what you need to make it work. Discuss this with your colleagues and employees to make sure they know what to do if you were away or unable to get to work.

Top tips!

• Put together a grab bag of important items, and store it somewhere accessible to everyone.
• Make a plan to protect your premises, this may involve putting flood resilience measures in place or moving equipment to higher levels.
• Make a communications plan for keeping your staff up to date – include multiple options in case one has failed.
• Be clear about what your insurance covers. Check your cover regularly to ensure it is appropriate. Keep a copy of policies off-site.

Once you have done this, test your plans to make sure they’re achievable – this exercise should help you do that. You should then be ready to keep operating in the event of an incident.

Remember, always stay safe. In an immediate emergency or where there is a risk to life, follow the advice of the emergency services or phone 999.

Put your plans into action to continue delivering your critical services, this may mean moving to an alternative location or stopping your non-critical activity.

Keep in regular touch with all your staff, make sure they’re safe and know what to do.

Incidents and emergencies are disruptive and distressing to those affected, with the recovery process being equally about practical tasks and emotional wellbeing.

Take the opportunity to learn from the disruption and incorporate the lessons into your plans.

Top tips!

• Talk to your staff about the incident so you can understand their perspective of what happened, were there impacts you weren’t expecting?
• Review your service delivery during the incident, were you able to keep operating effectively?
• Consider overall, what went well, what didn’t go and what could be improved for the future

Use this information to review and update your Business Continuity plan, consider any future training that might be required and set a date to test the plans you’ve made – this exercise will help with that.