Article: Business continuity planning in Barnsley Article Body In 2004, the Civil Contingencies Act was introduced to various designated responders including the emergency services, health services and local authorities. With the introduction of this legislation, a new specific duty was placed upon all councils with regard to business continuity planning and management. There were two aspects to this duty; the first being to ensure that robust business continuity plans are in place for the services it provides and, secondly, to promote business continuity to local businesses. What is business continuity management? Business continuity management is the process by which councils are required to identify all their critical services and develop systems to ensure that they can be maintained during a period of disruption to normal working arrangements. Disruptions can range from staff shortage, lack of access to a building, severe weather, pandemic outbreaks or loss of IT infrastructure. Barnsley Council has completed a process of identifying all functions that each internal service provides and rated them to identify which are critical. This process allowed services to develop action plans detailing redeployment, alternative management and of necessary resources to ensure that no detrimental effect is experienced to those critical functions. Business continuity promotion This is a statutory duty for councils, who are required to actively promote business continuity planning to small and medium enterprises. However, they are not required to write plans for them. Promotion can be done using a wide variety of media, ranging from face to face awareness sessions, printed advice and guidance including templates issued to businesses or made freely available on the internet. Barnsley Council has developed basic templates to allow a business to very easily develop their own useable plan to ensure that if an incident occurs they have considered and planned for the consequences. This will enable them to recovery to normality much faster than if no planning had been put in place. The templates are supplied free of charge and can be provided by post or e-mailed by using the contact details below. Contact Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council Chief Executive's department Human Resources PO Box 680 Barnsley S70 9JF E- mail: BMBCResilience@barnsley.gov.uk Specific business continuity information can be found at the following weblinks: The Business Continuity Institute Continuity Central Emergency planning and business continuity information can be found at the following weblinks: The Cabinet Office: UK Resilience Website Direct Gov: Preparing for Emergencies Website South Yorkshire Emergencies Website