This blog focuses on risk and resilience challenges in the public and not for profit sector.
Many existing publications assume that the challenges of the public and private sectors are identical.
They are not!
Why should the public sector invest in business continuity management?
The public sector is responsible for providing public services such as:
Education
Health and social care
Emergency services
Military and law
enforcement services
Housing and waste collection
The charity sector is also responsible for public benefit entity services.
Let's consider the case of UK Government.
UK, local government consists of at least one or two tiers of authority.
Those with two tiers, with responsibilities of local services divided between them (as of 2019) include:
27 county councils – such as Warwickshire County Council That contain within them:
201 district, borough or city councils such as North Warwickshire Borough Council or Coventry City Council
One (unitary) tier providing all services include:
56 unitary councils – such as Leicester
33 London boroughs
36 metropolitan boroughs – such as Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council
Local councils are made up of elected officials (councillors) and non-elected officials (appointed). Councils are responsible for social care, schools, housing and planning, waste collection, licensing, business support, registrar services and pest control within their boundaries. You can find out more about their responsibilities and structures at the Local Government Association website.
The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places a statutory duty on local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales, to develop business continuity plans for all of the functions that they provide.
Local Authorities need to be able to respond to extreme weather conditions, cyber-attacks and IT failures (among others) to ensure that they can continue to provide vital services to their community.
Sometimes local authorities are not fully aware of these responsibilities !
How do authorities relate to their local resilience forums?
They should link local risks to their local strategic and financial plans.
But do they do this?
Furthermore, for local authorities and public sector organisations such as the National Health Service, like any private organisation, the benefits of business continuity planning and management are:
Reducing financial loss
Managing uninsurable risk
Minimising disruptions to customers/clients/constituents/service users
HOW WOULD YOU investigate a business continuity plan for a public sector organisation, charity or local government in a country of your choice?
How would you go about it?
It is an issue which the public and not for profit sector must condider!
In my previous blog I have detailed the sources of risk that such an organisation must consider for a risk register.
This takes such a process one step further!
コメント