Helping an independent school prepare for a disruptive event

They were struggling with their existing Business Continuity Plan and didn’t feel it was fit for purpose should a significant disruption occur. The plan was confusing, there were elements that were unclear, staff were struggling to use the plan, and it was incomplete and out-of-date.

Ecclesiastical’s specialist ERM Consultants responded with a support package which included a Business Continuity Management (BCM) workshop to help the Senior Leadership team build confidence and understanding, along with the development of a new Business Continuity Plan using a more simplified, tried and tested approach.

Two ERM Consultants from Ecclesiastical went on site to facilitate a BCM Workshop with the Senior Leadership team which focused on:

• Developing their knowledge and understanding of Business Continuity Management and how the new Business Continuity Plan would work in practice
• Guiding the school in undertaking a Business Impact Analysis to identify Critical Services, response Strategies and Action Plans which would formulate the foundation of the Business Continuity Plan.

Two further virtual half hour meetings were held with key members of staff in IT and Facilities Management to gather further detail supporting the completion of action plans.

Ecclesiastical issued an initial draft of the new BCM Plan to the school including key observations with further areas for consideration to strengthen and finalise the plan.

The new plan is up-to-date, easy to use and follow should an incident occur. The Senior Leadership team felt confident that the plan was based on credible scenarios and the school would now be in a position to effectively respond, keep critical services going during a disruption and recover to normal operations as soon as possible.