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Current emergency situations - civil

How would your business cope with a major incident or emergency that could affect your staff, customers or premises?

Major emergencies can develop suddenly without warning. Situations can threaten and disrupt your business and impact upon you and your staff. You have invested heavily in your business and you need to ensure it remains safe, secure and viable. Being better informed and better prepared to cope with emergencies has a wide range of benefits and is good business practice. It reassures your customers and suppliers that you take the resilience and security of your business seriously: it is good for you, your staff, your business, your neighbours and your reputation.

A Business Continuity Plan does not have to be a massive document covering every eventuality. Indeed in the majority of cases, it may only be a couple of sides of A4. The important thing is to look at what could interrupt your business and have good workarounds in place to deal with them.

A lot of small businesses operate out of industrial parks, which means they have a variety of services concentrated in a small area. Even if you do not use dangerous chemicals or processes, others close to you may. If there is a fire or incident at one of those units, the emergency services may well place a large cordon around it and evacuate or prevent anybody from entering the area. Even a few hours denial to their building can make the difference to some businesses, so understanding that there could be an issue and then deciding on the best way to work around it could make the difference between keeping a contract or losing it to a better prepared and more resilient competitor. 

For example; 

You may have someone answering the phone and dealing with enquiries in a small office. If an industrial unit nearby caught fire and it contained dangerous chemical or acetylene bottles then almost certainly the Fire and Rescue Service would evacuate. Is it a procedure for that person to divert the phone to a mobile?, or do you have the capability to remote access the answer phone to deal with calls, or remotely divert? 

If you have specific stock you need to access urgently, and it is key to your business, would a second smaller lockup on a separate site be economically viable? If not if a few of you with similar needs got together and shared an offsite unit be worth the cost of protecting your business?

This is simple resilience planning, and in a lot of cases has no or little cost associated with it. The Local Authorities have a statutory duty under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 [new window]  to provide free advice on business continuity to small and medium enterprises and voluntary organisations. For North Yorkshire, a small team in the Emergency Planning Unit are available to provide this advice. Please mail us using the address below or ask for the "Emergency Planning Unit Business Continuity Team" when phoning the generic contact number for the council.

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