Protecting your Business against Emergencies

How can BCM Plans help?

Emergencies can happen unexpectedly, and they can have a significant impact on businesses. Whether it's a natural disaster such as a flood or fire, or a widespread event like the COVID-19 pandemic, it's crucial for businesses to be prepared and have a plan in place to safeguard their operations, employees, and customers. Business continuity planning plays a vital role in ensuring that a business can recover swiftly and return to normal operations after an emergency.

What is Business Continuity Management (BCM)?

Business Continuity Management (BCM) is a process that helps organisations prepare for and handle emergencies or unexpected events that could disrupt their normal operations. It involves creating a plan to ensure that essential functions can continue during and after an emergency. The goal of BCM is to reduce the impact of disruptions on a business and ensure that it can recover quickly and resume normal operations.

After the Manchester bomb attack, it was found that many businesses that had Business Continuity Management plans were able to survive. However, it has been observed that companies affected by a disaster without a plan in place have only a 50% chance of surviving in the following 12 months.

By putting Business Continuity Management plans into action, we can ensure that our business is prepared and able to continue operating smoothly in the face of unexpected disruptions or crises.

Identify individual roles and responsibilities, including who makes decisions
What structure or functions must remain to keep things going
Prioritise the action plan and functions needed first and the resources needed
Help businesses continue during disruption and recover quickly
BCM in Nottingham City

What risks are considered?

Although terrorism is a risk, the following generic risks should be considered:

Large-scale temporary absence of staff
Permanent or long-term loss of staff
Denial of the site or geographical area
Flooding
Severe weather
Loss of mains electricity
Loss of IT
Disruption of transport
Loss of mains water and sewerage
Loss of availability of oil and fuel
Loss of telephone/ mobile telephone communications

The government encourages all organisations to understand Business Continuity Management clearly and has published the Business Continuity Guide for Dummies in association with The Emergency Planning Society (EPS):

The organisation for Resilience Professionals
- Visit: (the-eps.org).

Preparing a Business Continuity Plan

It's impossible to predict every potential incident that could pose a threat to your business or organisation. However, you can develop a basic plan using the information provided below.

The level of detail and comprehensiveness required for your business continuity plan may vary depending on the size and nature of your business. By following the links below, you can assess your business's preparedness and determine if additional measures should be implemented.

Simple Self Assessment

Self-Assessment: Evaluate your business's level of preparedness by using the provided links. These resources can help you gauge your current readiness and identify areas that may require further attention.

The London Prepared website will take you through a simple self-assessment process to see whether your business is at risk.
- Visit: London Prepared: A City-Wide Endeavour

Business Continuity is essential to aid planning to ensure minimal disruption and recovery to business as usual. The City has many risks, so preparations must be made in advance to deal with disruption to the business. It is also important to consider developing an initial response plan; to enable this, the City Council has produced a guide.

The guide contains valuable information on the following:

Emergency Services’ actions
How can you aid the emergency services?
Cordons
Evacuation, including the City’s evacuation zones
Public information and communication with the emergency services
Business Continuity
Counter Terrorism
Contents of grab bags

Nottingham City Council (with the help of the City Centre Emergency Planning Group, CCEPG) has written a guide to help businesses. To get a copy of the Nottingham City Centre Emergency Planning Guide,

Click on the link below:

Nottingham City Centre Emergency planning Guide for Businesses

The UK is currently facing the most severe and sustained threat from International Terrorism ever known. The threat is real, ever-present and enduring. The events of 2005 and subsequent operations have shown that it is vital that all agencies enhance their capability and capacity to deal with this threat.

At the same time, domestic extremism - which incorporates animal rights, political extremism and other extremist activity - also poses significant dangers to the social and economic well-being of the country.

Visit For More info on Getting training and advice on counter-terrorism ACT - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The Police Service has a vital role in the effort to counter terrorism but cannot combat it alone: effective working with the full spectrum of partners, stakeholders and the community will be critical to our success in protecting the UK.

ACT Awareness is your opportunity to become involved in an exciting development in community safety in Nottingham city centre.

Visit For More info on ACT Awareness and E-Learning, visit ProtectUK. Police

The Environment Agency has produced a booklet and materials for making your business resilient against flooding. This includes a guide to creating a business flood plan and sample templates.

For further information,