Government Business

Recently it was reported that the current economic downturn is having a direct impact on the day-to-day business of government departments and their respective agencies. One government department is said to lack the expertise and resources to advise the unemployed executive and professional artisan. 
 
In recent years government departments and their respective government agencies have experienced drastic cuts in human resources all in the name of streamlining processes and a reliance on IT. The pressures of increased footfall, telephone calls, and e-mails are a reality across government departments and agencies. It is all too evident that inappropriate downsizing to meet public perceptions of over-spend is now coming home to haunt decision makers who find themselves having to employ staff to meet the demands of providing a robust service to the public. The loss of experienced staff due to cost benefit analysis is a factor that will also haunt decision-makers for a long time to come. One wonders if lessons will be learned as a result of ‘expedient’ economic decisions that are ill-thought out and often the result of knee jerk reactions.

Business ethics
Risk management and business continuity planning are two strands of the business management process that are here to stay. However, the concept of a ‘business ethic’ is an ingredient lacking in both strands. This is not the place to discuss the benefits of an imbedded business ethic but merely to make the salient point that an ‘ethic’ has a role to play in business continuity planning. 
 
Business organisations that fail to prepare for disasters by not having in place well tested and tried business continuity plans are in danger of contravening their stated Codes of Ethics and Standards of Behaviour, thus failing their stakeholders and may damage their competitive edge in the current volatile market economy. Research studies show that complacency in business continuity planning remains a major issue despite wake up calls from incidents as diverse as flooding, power cuts, terrorism and rapidly spreading Internet viruses. 
 
The extreme weather conditions and falling snow at the beginning of February almost brought the UK to a standstill. That week saw freak snowstorms that resulted in many people having to take a forced absence from work or school. No doubt many lessons have been learned from that experience and the ‘robustness’ of business continuity plans will have been found to be somewhat wanting. Following that event, managers both in the public and private sectors, wrote memos thanking staff for the great efforts they made in getting to work. 
 
In the coming weeks and months we will read reports of how government departments and their respective agencies responded to the February 2009 adverse weather conditions. The civil servants who are responsible for preparing the reports are essentially men and women of great integrity. They will tell the story as it is and no doubt the masters of spin will ensure that an end product will be acceptable to Parliament and the public. Public and private sector bodies purposely refrain from revealing the whole story on how things really went on the day. All we can genuinely hope for is that the lessons learned will be taken on board and acted upon. This will entail an in depth re-examination of business continuity planning and disaster recovery planning. Embedding the concept of business continuity planning in the minds of all civil servants is and will continue to be a mammoth task. The same holds for the private sector, which is all too prone to pay lip service both to business continuity planning and risk management. 
 
All we can ask is that government departments and their respective agencies do two things: develop business continuity plans that are intrinsically viable, realistic in content and to test them thoroughly at least twice annually. Not to do is to play with fire and lose the confidence of both the public and wider business community.

Identifying threats
The British Standard on Business Continuity Management (BCM), BS 25999, defines BCM as a: “holistic management process that identifies potential threats to an organisation and the impacts to business operations that those threats, if realised, might cause, and which provides a framework for building organisational resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value-creating activities.” 
 
Business continuity management is the process through which government departments aim to continue their critical business activities following a disruption and effective recovery afterwards (return to ‘normal’). It is an essential aspect of securing their business. So it is imperative that government departments and agencies have in place robust, up to date, fit for purpose and flexible business continuity plans that are regularly tested and reviewed and supported by competent staff that allow them to maintain, or as soon as possible resume provision of, key products and services in the event of a disruption. 
 
Government departments have the key and facility to be the exemplar par excellence of a strong business continuity management process that provides leadership to other public and private sector organisations; sending a message of reassurance to the public and the business community, and demonstrating to international partners that the UK is a secure place to trade. 
 
It is therefore recommended that government departments and agencies lead the way in continuing to work towards aligning their business continuity arrangements with the British Standard for Business Continuity Management: BS 25999 – which provides a basis for understanding, developing and implementing business continuity within an organisation. 

Thomas P.J. Bodkin, BA (Hons), CIRM, RRP is a Certificant member of the Institute of Risk Management and can be contacted on This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . 

The Institute of Risk Management runs specialist distance learning courses on ‘Public sector risk’ and on ‘Business continuity and crisis management’ as part of its International Diploma in Risk Management. See www.theirm.org for details.