Business continuity case study - Anchor Trust
Anchor Trust, London and Bradford: Business continuity management system Since 2007 Steelhenge has been assisting Anchor Trust with the development of a Business Continuity Management System (BCMS) through the provision of consultancy and training services. Anchor Trust is the largest not-for-profit provider of housing, support and care to older people in England. The organisation is made up of a number of businesses providing a range of services, including Anchor Homes, the largest not-for-profit provider of residential and nursing care in the sector. Anchor employees10,000 people and each week provides housing and/or support to 50,000 customers. For Anchor, an interruption to service provision has the potential to impact people's lives directly. Following the Civil Contingencies Act of 2004 and highly publicised events such as the London terrorist attacks, the Buncefield Oil Depot fire, the threat of an influenza pandemic, and environmental threats such as heat wave and flooding, Anchor recognised their need for a cohesive Business Continuity Management System in order to deal with the impacts of a major incident on the operation of its business and minimise service disruption to its vulnerable customer base. Steelhenge was engaged by Anchor to assist with the BCM project through all stages of the BC lifecycle. The early stages included assisting with the development of an overall project plan based on the desired timelines and available resources, developing a BC Policy, briefing the Strategic team to secure buy in at the highest level and providing the project team responsible for delivering BC within their areas with essential training in business continuity. Steelhenge also assisted Anchor with undertaking BIA's and Risk Assessments, developing tools and templates that were applicable to both an operational delivery and core support services environment. This process identified a number of business issues for Anchor and the BIA process has been described by many business areas as a very useful process, disaster aside. As well as developing BC plans, Steelhenge also assisted Anchor with the development of a robust Crisis Management framework and plan to ensure that in the event of a major incident the right people could come to together to form a team and coordinate the overall response. The Crisis Management Plan has been a key development for Anchor. It has been well received by all levels of management already having been put to the test for real. The scale and geographic spread of Anchor's business added complexity to the BC project and required careful project management on both sides to ensure quality of delivery within the required timescales. The next stage is to start embedding BC within the organisation and deliver a programme of exercises.
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