BS:25999 - A standards approach

Defining Business Continuity has always been a rather subjective excercise. It's not possible to issue a simple check list of DOs and DON'Ts as each organisation has its own priorities and unique situations.

The British Standards Institute has long dealt with the need for flexible standards systems which can define a set of best practice guidelines which remain flexible enough to be adopted by all manner of business models, whilst remaining robust enough to ensure they will be accepted by business partners as the industry standard benchmark of quality assurance.

So the recent publication of the new British Standard BS:25999-2 aimed at providing a framework for implementing an effective business continuity system was widely anticipated by British business.

With an increasing awareness of the importance of Business Continuity systems, driven in part by the increase of environmental impacts, such as flooding, and the recent focus on international terrorism. The greatest driver of Business Continuity in the business world has been the increase in Globalisation. With growing reliance on international supply chains on outsourced service providers, the dispersion of business activities makes it increasingly complicated to get a company back up and running following a disruption.

The UK Civil Contingencies Act has played its part, and the City is implementing additional regulatory requirements, with bodies such as the Financial Services Authority endorsing a commitment to Business Continuity.

As part of the governments commitment to helping key national infrastructure services implement Business Continuity, the cabinet office was one of the organisations sitting on the standards committee which formulated BS:25999.

The BS:25999 specification document builds on the earlier 2006 part one publication, a definition and guidance document attempting to extend to small business the recommendations outlined in PAS 56.

Implementing BS:25999 is not a one time exercise, to be outsourced to a consultant or delegated to middle management. The specification is very clear, the ownership of the Business Continuity plan must lie with the executive board, and be driven from the top down.

In addition to the standard itself, The BSI provides a number of resources which are useful to assist management in fulfilling the requirements of the standard. There are also third party publications which support this.

Bill Wood Associates are developing an online system which provides a roadmap of stages to be followed to develop a system in compliance with the standard. You can read a little more about how it works and what it will provide at http://www.isoconsultant.co.uk/iAssessor/

The system is currently in private Beta, but you can register to be notified when new Beta test positions are available.