Promoting business resilience

Local authorities are required to take appropriate steps to provide advice and assistance to businesses and other organisations about the continuance of their activities, including organisations within the commercial and voluntary sectors in their areas. Although this duty is placed uniquely on local authorities, other Category 1 responders are required to cooperate with them in their delivery of this duty. They will also contribute to the resilience of other organisations through various aspects of their normal work, including crime and fire prevention, warning and informing, and managing their supply chains to ensure their own resilience.

It is recommended that local authorities fulfil this duty by promoting Business Resilience externally in the ways described in this guidance, including giving due consideration to:

• the priorities, motivations and skills of individuals, teams, and organisations
• the relationships with external organisations and their resilience capabilities
• the formal processes and tangible resources that deliver goods or services
• the risks the organisation faces and potential emergencies that might arise

It is recommended that local authorities approach the promotion of Business Resilience in a structured way that makes use of the full range of their established networks with external organisations. This should be a coordinated long-term effort, endorsed by senior staff, with the regular small-scale involvement of a wide range of their departments. Resilience specialists should support and facilitate an authority-wide programme as well as producing specialist initiatives that complement it.

The aim should be to promote a culture of Business Resilience where key concepts become familiar and are seen as important in achieving normal business goals, so that individual organisations are then motivated to develop arrangements for themselves. Work in this area should focus on the following objectives:

• raising awareness of Business Resilience
• helping businesses, voluntary sector organisations and others engage with these issues and see their value
• providing reliable and appropriate information for organisations wishing to develop their Business Resilience

This approach is analogous to that of promoting community resilience amongst the general public or raising awareness of topical issues in specific communities. The particular format for this programme should be tailored to suit each area and the ways in which the local authority conducts its activity more generally. The approaches described below are recommended as building blocks from which to develop.

Because advice relating to Business Resilience is already available and specific arrangements will vary between firms (and because firms themselves best address implementation once an interest in Business Resilience has developed), local authorities are advised to focus their efforts on engaging with businesses and other organisations, and on reinforcing the key principles of Business Resilience. It is not the role of local authorities to develop detailed plans or deliver in-depth training or intervention on behalf of other organisations unless they specifically choose to do so.