Contingency planning

It is advisable for an inquiry to draw up and maintain a business continuity plan to ensure the prompt and efficient recovery of essential operations from any physical disaster at its premises.

Business continuity management may be defined as:

A holistic management process that identifies potential impacts that threaten an organisation and provides a framework for building resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value-creating activities. (Business Continuity Institute, 2001)

Any event that prevents an organisation from carrying out its usual operations in the normal places of business for more than, say, 96 hours may reasonably be considered a disaster.

Causes of disaster

There are many possible causes of a disaster or disruptive event which occur or threatens to occur and the extent of their impact will vary from incident to incident. The most likely causes a public inquiry could be faced with might include: fire; storm; bomb threat; bomb damage; other terrorist activity; vandalism, for example broken glass making the entrance unsafe to use; heating or air conditioning failure that could lead to staff/participants having to leave the premises; power failure; severe weather conditions and loss of essential services.

The concepts underlying business continuity planning are to manage the risks which could result in disastrous events and thus minimise the likelihood of a disaster occurring, reduce the time taken to recover when an incident occurs and minimise the risks involved in the recovery process by making many critical decisions in advance in a stress-free environment. The plan should provide for a worst-case scenario, including loss of life and the destruction of premises. It should be adaptable for less serious situations by the business continuity and incident control team, which should be led by a senior member of staff, normally the Inquiry Secretary. At every stage of the plan’s implementation, consideration must be given to security. Security cannot be breached, weakened, reduced or removed just because a disaster has occurred.

An effective plan is like to discuss the mechanisms for: its invocation; assessing a situation; incident control; prevention of escalation; evacuation and notification; damage assessment, remedial action and salvage; remote location contingencies and promoting awareness of, and for testing, the plan.

Continuity and crisis plans

The necessity of having a disparate crisis communications plan, focused on the general principle of releasing relevant information quickly and with due regard issues of privacy, should be considered.

The success of the business continuity plan is in the interests of any public inquiry, its staff and stakeholders. Checks should be made at all stages within the recovery process to ensure that proper progress is being made and to identify any problems that may occur. A public inquiry should be mindful of the importance of business continuity planning and keep its plan under review to ensure that it remains robust, flexible and responsive to the exigencies of changing situations.