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Fastrack Consulting have article published in Continuity magazine – the magazine of the Business Continuity Institute.
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Fastrack Consulting support West Sussex County Council in their attainment of BS 25999
Fastrack Consulting have been supporting West Sussex County Council in the development of their Business Continuity Management System to BS 25999 standard.
At a recent award ceremony, Henry Smith, Leader of West Sussex County Council accepted the certificate from Andrew Launn of the BSi.
Pictured above: Henry Smith (front centre), Leader of WSCC accepts the award. Roy Whittle of Fastrack Consulting (second from right) and members of WSCC Emergency Management team were also in attendance.
In achieving this award, West Sussex County Council are the first English council to become certified to BS 25999. At the time of writing, they are also the largest organisation to achieve certification.
Alan Jones, Deputy Head of Emergency Management at the council said “We place a high priority on ensuring that we are able to deliver our services to the community, whatever the circumstances.”
This is why the council has been on a journey to achieving certification under the standard.
BS 25999 is a code of practice and an auditable specification for Business Continuity, published by the British Standards Institute (BSi) in November 2007. The standard provides a robust framework covering all of the key elements of a Business Continuity Management System.
West Sussex County Council embraced the standard as a vehicle to take their existing Business Continuity arrangements forward. Since 2004, the Civil Contingencies Act has required local authorities, and other category one responders, to have Business Continuity arrangements in place. West Sussex County Council quickly saw that BS 25999 would provide just the kind of programme that could drive their existing arrangements to the level of an internationally recognised standard.
Presenting the certificate, Andrew Launn recognised the hard work of West Sussex County Council Emergency Management team. The team were praised for their efforts in developing the plans and systems that have made the council a much more resilient organisation.
. “Whilst we are naturally proud to be the first English council to achieve certification to BS 25999, this is not only about certificates,” commented Damien Adams, Head of Emergency Management. “We set out to make sure that we could continue to support our customers in the community, even during a crisis and to build resilience into everything that we do. This achievement is just a step on that journey, albeit a significant step. We are committed to continual improvement of our Business Continuity arrangements and we see this very much as an ongoing process.”
When asked about the scale of the challenge to achieve BS 25999 certification, Damien Adams continued, “West Sussex County Council achieving certification to the standard has demonstrated that even a large, complex and dynamic public sector organisation can meet the requirements of the specification. We may be the first in England to do so, but I expect that this will lead others to follow our example.”
Commenting on the achievement, Roy Whittle of Fastrack Consulting said, “More and more organisations are coming to realise that it is essential to have good Business Continuity Management Systems in place in order to ensure that they can continue to operate and deliver the services their stakeholders expect when a crisis hits. It is reassuring to see that West Sussex County Council is taking resilience so seriously and we are hopeful that many other local authorities will follow suit by attaining the standard.”
This means that Fastrack Consulting are the only consultancy to have successfully supported an English local authority to certification. This, along with the fact that West Sussex County Council are the largest organisation to have been awarded the standard and our BSi ACP membership for BS 25999, makes us a uniquely qualified organisation with an exceptional track record in both private and public sectors.
To find out more about how we can help with your Business Continuity Management arrangements, contact Fastrack Consulting.
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