Information and advice for businesses

Emergencies often happen without warning and in many different ways.

An emergency can mean the loss of basic services including water, power gas and telephones. This could mean damage or threat of damage to your property or business, for example by flooding, fire, blast or even harm or threat to human life.

It could mean evacuation from your home or business premises and indeed the neighbourhood. It might also mean that your family, staff and customers would find it difficult to stay in contact.

We all hope that an emergency never happens. However, if it does, there is some simple advice you can follow to try to minimise the effect if has on you.

You can cope better with an emergency by preparing in advance and working with family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. Just a few preparations now can ensure your best protection in an emergency situation.

How would your business cope in a crisis? Are you prepared if the worst happens? What is the worst case scenario for your organisation and how likely is it to happen? If you are prepared for the worst, then you can deal with incidents of a lesser scale.

Business Continuity Management shows you how to identify potential situations that can threaten an organisation or business, and shows you how you can lessen the effects of an emergency on your stakeholders, reputation and customers.

As part of the process, you may want to make a plan. This would involve identifying and evaluating the risks to your organisation and then finding ways to enable you to continue operating if an incident disrupts your normal business.

The benefits of planning for your response to an incident are many:

• Protecting your business
• Protecting your reputation
• Increased staff knowledge
• Team building
• Solving potential disruptions in advance
• Quick access to alternative suppliers
• Competitive advantage in an emergency

For further information or advice visit the following websites:

• London Prepared - News and information on how London's front-line organisations are checking that all their plans and procedures can stand up to any type of threat.
• Preparing for Emergencies - In summer 2004 every home in the UK received an information booklet, 'Preparing for Emergencies - What you need to know'. It gives practical common sense advice on what to do in an emergency - for example, a fire, terrorist attack or natural disaster.
• UK Resilience - The website of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. It provides links to government and non-government sources on a wide variety of emergencies and crisis that can affect the UK, plus emergency planning guidance and government information.
• Business Continuity Management - A joint website between Newham, Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Havering and Barking and Dagenham Councils that helps organisations to create a plan so business can resume partially within a predetermined time after a disaster or disruption.

Or please contact:

Our Resilience & Emergency Management Team on: 020 8430 2000 (ext: 37610) during normal office hours, Monday to Friday.