Merseyside Prepared

Photograph - Roscoe Engineering Tunnel Collapse, Park Road, Dingle, Liverpool, July 2012

You can do some things now to prepare for the unexpected.  

Being more prepared and resilient can give a competitive advantage to your business.  Refer to the Merseyside Community Risk Register to learn more about the potential emergencies that could happen where you work and the appropriate way to respond to them.  The actions you take to make your business resilient will depend on your circumstances.  Having assessed these, only you can decide how much time, and possibly money, you want to invest in increasing your resilience. The suggested actions below will get you started, ranging from a free ‘print off and fill-in’ plan to more specialist training:

Quick and easy preparation:

• make sure you have suitable business insurance, the Association of British Insurers provides helpful information;
• complete the Business Emergency Resilience Group (BERG) 10 Minute Plan on the Business in the Community website;
• think through potential disruptions to your company using the 2-page Bitesize Dummies Guide to Business Continuity;
• put together an Emergency Pack containing important documents and items to keep your business running if you had to relocate with little or no notice;
• consider your preparation for cyber threats.

More advanced preparation:

• complete a free Business Resilience Health Check to help you understand how to make your company more resilient (this can take up to 1.5 hours to complete);
• write a Business Continuity Plan, to help you think about what you could do to be less affected by disruptions;
• assess the resilience of your supply chain to risks resulting from climate change;
• talk to neighbours, businesses and customers about your plans and how you could support each other;
• test your plan and adjust it where necessary to avoid complications in an emergency;
• make sure all your staff have copies of your plan and that they know their responsibilities in an emergency;
• read the guidance for preparing your businesses for flooding and for preparing your premises.

Follow the links below for further advice:

• Business Continuity Management
• Why is it important to have a Business Continuity Plan?
• Creating a Business Continuity Plan
• Emergency Pack
• Training and Exercising
• Self-Assessment
• Cyber Security