UK financial sector Annual Market-wide Exercise gets underway

Today (Friday 13th October) sees the start of the UK financial sector’s Annual Market-wide Exercise.

Led by the Tripartite UK financial authorities It will run until 24th November and will assess how well the authorities and the financial services sector are prepared to manage the business continuity consequences of a ‘flu pandemic.

The exercise will require participants to review the continuity of their own business operations as a result of substantially reduced staffing levels. Participants will also have to think about the impact of disruption to key dependencies such as transport, power, telecoms etc.

Rather than simulating a ‘live fire’ event, the exercise will recreate a pandemic incident over an extended time-frame, involving a ‘rolling exchange of information, decisions and responses against an evolving scenario’. This should contribute significantly to the authorities' and the sector's understanding of the nature of issues that might arise during a pandemic.

During the exercise participants will receive regular updates regarding the severity of the pandemic, its effect on them and on the wider economy. Participants will have an opportunity to review and assess the impact of the information before communicating decisions to the authorities, and ask questions. Where appropriate the scenario will evolve in line with participant responses. Each participating organisation will determine how it will manage its involvement in the exercise over the six week period.

The Tripartite authorities will not provide public updates on the progress of the exercise but a report will be published once the exercise has concluded.

•Date: 13th October 2006• Region: UK •Type: Article •Topic: Testing and exercising
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