British Standard for Business Continuity Management – development is underway

Business risk has many facets ranging from recovery from the impact of major events – fire, flood, terrorism, product recall - as well as realising the commercial benefits of risk through opportunity management.

That was the message from Mike Low, Director of BSI British Standards speaking at the launch of the UK’s first Business Continuity Management (BCM) Technical Standards Committee.

The BSI Committee’s task will be to develop national best practice documents to provide guidance for business on how best to manage business continuity.

Head of Risk Market Development at BSI British Standards, Nicki Dennis said, “Standards provide a practical framework for addressing these important issues and, in addition, offer tangible fiscal benefits to business”.

The BCM Technical Committee held its first meeting on 23rd August. There are 35 members of the committee, representing a wide range of organisations and Institutes. The Committee is chaired by the Business Continuity Institute’s vice-chair, Chris Green. In addition to the full committee members, many continuity and crisis experts will be seconded onto one of the various Work Groups looking at sections of the proposed standard.

To start the development process, seven subject groupings have been agreed: Introduction and Overview; Program Management; Understanding Your Business; Strategy; BCM Response; Culture; Testing; Glossary. An eighth Work Group, defining the auditable section of the standard, will start work in a few weeks.

Many source documents will be studied to ensure the best and most relevant material influences the new British Standard. Sources include PAS56, the BCI’s GPG, NFPA 1600, SPRING Singapore’s business continuity standards work, and a range of contributions from individual firms. Says Chris Green, “the challenge will be to create a definitive standard which is relevant for public and private sector organisations, both large and small.”

The full committee will meet on October 20th, December 12th and Feb 8th, with the Work Groups meeting between these review dates.

Public consultation for the new standard is scheduled for first quarter 2006 with the final standard due to be published by the end of summer 2006.

•Date: 30th September 2005 • Region: UK • Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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