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Thin Ice
Thin Ice provides statistics and synopses of business interruption events that have occurred around the world. It is provided free to business continuity professionals and is updated quarterly. To receive it on a regular basis email thinice@glenabbot.co.uk

July 7th 2005: looking back for the future
The BCI recently assisted Continuity Central to conduct a survey aimed at discovering whether the events of July 7th have had a lasting impact on business continuity practices. The results are now in…
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Business Checklist for Pandemic Flu Planning
The UK Cabinet Office has published a checklist to help businesses with pandemic ‘flu planning. The checklist has been prepared by the Cabinet Office in conjunction with the CBI, the Institute of Directors, British Chamber of Commerce and others. It has been designed to provide a simple reference tool for businesses which also allows the benchmarking of the current state of planning preparedness.
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Business continuity on a limited budget
by David Honour, editor, Continuity Central
When funds are limited should priority be given to crisis management or plan development?
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Prepare for the worst - Guidelines for BC Management
by Lyndon Bird, FBCI, BCI Technical Director
Article exploring the basic question: "What is business continuity management?"
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Avian Flu: What does it mean to business continuity?
by Tim Armit
Without doubt 2006 will be the year of the avian flu threat. But what, if anything, does this mean to the business continuity industry ? Is it hype or real? Is avian flu different to any other threat? What are the implications to the business continuity planner if this does become a pandemic? What should we expect from Government and what do we need to know from them? How can we prepare for it? This article examines these areas and gives some practical advice on what we can actually do to help prepare.
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Buncefield –What BCM is really about
by Lyndon Bird, FBCI, BCI Technical Director
From a BCM perspective the Buncefield disaster provided more messages and lessons than all of the other annual incidents put together.
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Pandemic 'Flu Contingency
by Jamie Jameson, Link Associates
This paper provides an overview of pandemic planning for UK businesses and offers a detailed breakdown of company considerations at each World Health Organization pandemic phase.
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How much do you really know about off site recovery?
by Mike Osbourne MBCI, Operations Director, ICM Recovery Services. Published in Continuity Volume 9 issue 4
The bombings in London in July ‘05 revealed a number of new challenges that businesses had not previously thought about when it comes to continuity arrangements.
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Why BC for SMEs should be different
by Kathleen Lucey FBCI, Montague Technology Management, Inc. Published in Continuity, Volume 9 issue 2.
In the wake of the events of 9/11, many executives and owners of small and medium-size businesses began to feel insecure about their futures. Most had only rudimentary Disaster Recovery programs; many entrepreneurs did not start their careers in IT. Many wanted to feel more confident about the ability of their firms to survive such an event.

And yet there has been very little development of meaningful continuity capability in these businesses. Why is this?

We can say that building an effective continuity capability costs a lot of money. This is money that SME’s may either not have or not want to spend on such a program. It may also be true that the current approach of the BC industry may not be the most appropriate for their needs.

Maybe we need to look at our current methods and techniques, with a view to adapting them to the perhaps very different needs of SME’s.
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Embedding business continuity into the business culture
By Trevor Partridge, Business Continuity Manager, Marks & Spencer. Published in Continuity, Volume 9, issue 1
To be truly successful a business continuity management program needs to be an intrinsic part of company culture, but how do you set about achieving this?
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Learning The Lessons From Manchester …
Supplied by SunGard Availability Services & Royal and SunAlliance
The widespread loss of telecommunications services experienced by organisations in North West England in 2004 demonstrated how important it is for businesses to ensure that their business continuity and disaster recovery plans include effective measures to protect against telecoms failures.
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Public Policy and Management of Disaster Reduction
by Dr Alan Waring, Chief Executive, Asia Risk
Man-made disasters are virtually all preventable if industrial organisations have robust comprehensive Safety Management Systems (SMS) including prevention, reduction, control and mitigation all based on thorough life-cycle risk assessment, especially for major hazards. Risk-based safety justification reports (‘safety cases’) for regulatory acceptance are one proven approach. Emergency and disaster management arrangements must form part of the SMS and safety case.

In addition, a strong safety culture is essential to enable the SMS to deliver the desired outcomes. Further, independent validation and verification audits and
reviews on a continuing basis are required to ensure that the SMS continues to meet hazard and risk exposures, both existing and new, and changing demands. Lessons learned from a range of man-made disasters regarding key strategies and tactics to reduce both the number of disasters and their consequences are examined, as well as some key areas for governmental and inter-governmental action in disaster prevention.
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Implications of a colder than average winter
The following paper is designed to provide information for all Government Departments and Category 1 and 2 responders about the characteristics and possible impact of a severe winter on the scale of that experienced in 1995/6. It is intended to assist in preparation at all levels for managing the consequences of a severe winter on that scale on a consistent basis across the UK. The paper draws on Met Office modelling and the advice of experts on the potential consequences of predicted weather patterns. But, clearly, the material below can only be a probabilistic assessment - not a prediction by the Government - of what may happen. Flexibility in planning will be crucial to allow response options to be tailored to weather patterns or consequences that vary from those set out below.
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Why Directors & C-Level Officers ARE Legally Liable if a Disaster or Disruption Occurs
Why are Directors & C’s liable when there is an Emergency or Disaster, and how can they defend themselves? By Jay N. Rosenblatt, Partner, Simpson Wigle LLP
Much has been written about the catastrophe known as Katrina, but not much has been focused on the legal responsibilities of directors and C-level officers related to Disaster Management & Business Continuity.
Everyone talks about how to RESPOND to an emergency, and that indeed is important, but is a jury going to be satisfied with that kind of response? Likely not, but why not?
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