This Is a Specific Report of an All-Party Topic Group Established by Hertfordshire County

This is a specific report of an all-party Topic Group established by Hertfordshire County Council’s Resources Scrutiny Committee. The purpose of the Topic Group is to examine the robustness of the County Council’s existing business continuity management (BCM) strategies. The Group made influenza pandemic a focus due to its likely impact on HCC’s service delivery. It has considerable potential to cause widespread disruption to services and presents a significant business continuity challenge. Presentations from officers enabled Members to identify a number of perceived risks. A lack of Government guidance or delay in its publication has an impact on-going planning within HCC.

The Group then moved onto to consider wider aspects of BCM. In grouping the essential themes running through BCM as People, Property, Systems, the Head of SERMu advised that this could be used as a mechanism for assessing the resilience of BCM arrangements in the context of the “People” theme.

The Group comprised five County Councillors and held a number of meetings and took evidence from external expert witnesses from Primary Care and the Health Protection Agency, and senior HCC officers. Having considered the evidence, the Group established a number of findings and agreed a series of recommendations on behalf of the Resources Scrutiny Committee. The OSC Scrutiny Committee will then consider whether to refer these to one or more of the following:

·  Leader of the Council

·  Executive Member for Resources

·  County Council Cabinet

·  a meeting of the County Council

The work of the Group is detailed in the main body of the report, with supporting information contained in the Appendices.

The Group were reassured that the Authority is taking BCM planning seriously.

1  Introduction

1.1  The need to scrutinise the effectiveness of Hertfordshire County Council’s Business Continuity planning.

1.2  The subject was added to the Scrutiny Work Programme at the meeting of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee on the 13 September 2005 and the Topic Group established by the Resources Scrutiny Committee on 20 October 2005.

1.3  The Resources Scrutiny Committee recognized the magnitude of BCM and its likely duration. Consequently the Topic Group phased its work undertaking a thoroughly investigation of the Authority’s preparedness to cope with an influenza outbreak. Issued as a separate report and appearing here in its entirety as Chapter X.

1.4  In grouping the essential themes running through BCM as People, Property, Systems, the Head of SERMu advised that this could be used as a mechanism for assessing the resilience of BCM arrangements in the context of the “People” theme.

1.5  A copy of the scoping document for this can be viewed on the County Council web-site at www.hertsdirect.org/scrutiny.

1.6  Appendix One contains details of the membership of the Group and its meetings.

2  Incidents which have informed BCM planning, legislation, drives from within (HCC)

2..1  The Council’s Business Continuity Management Policy sets out how the County Council, through the application of its Business Continuity Management principles, will meet the statutory requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. The Business Contingency Plans (BCP) arrangements are intended to handle emergency situations as and when they arose. The BCPs were further refined in response to the concerns over the Millenium Bug and have been developed in response to review of table top exercises and live incidents during this period. The current process involves an annual exercises where elements of departmental BCPs are tested. The last exercise was run in October 2005 with the next one being held in February 2007 when the new updated BCP would be ready for use. Internal Audit will monitor the effectiveness of the implementation of the departmental BCPs as part of the annual audit process.

2..2  A number of key drivers warranting changes to BCPs have emerged: -

·  The Way We Work Project -The key theme to this project is reducing the number of offices used down to 3 main offices involving much relocation of staff and as a consequence existing BCPs requiring to be changed.

·  Learning from the Buncefield Incident (the Hemel Hempstead fire episode)

2..3  BCPs are already in use for County Hall, Hertford and Apsley 1 at Hemel Hempstead and a BCP for the new main offices in Stevenage will be developed and in place when the new offices are occupied in 2008. Furthermore each Department had its own BCP, plus Sections or Units of Departments not located within the same building as its parent Department will also have their own BCPs.

2..4  Currently the New Barnfield offices act as the Recovery Site in the event of County Hall, Hertford offices being disrupted and unavailable for use. Longer term plans possibly involved Apsley 2 or Stevenage being used as Recovery Centres when the New Barnfield site is closed. To support its use as a recovery centre new IT telephone equipment has been provided at the New Barnfield offices and this will be moved to Apsley 2 when the latter replaces New Barnfield as the recovery centre.

2..5  Key people with regard to BCP are the

·  Executive Member for Community Safety & Culture

·  Chief Executive

·  Heads of Departments

·  Business Continuity Team Leaders

·  Head of Safety, Emergency & Risk Management

·  Head of Health

·  Departmental Liaison Officers.

·  In addition the Council appointed a Business Continuity Officer in April 2006

2..6  The Topic Group was concerned to hear that key officers are currently based at County Hall. This presents significant difficulties to the effective management of the BCP if one of the main offices is affected by a major disaster and could lead to a situation where all the key officers were incapacitated.

2..7  The Business Continuity Team meet on a quarterly basis to monitor the progress made by departments in updating BC Plans and processes. Guidelines have recently been issued to all departments on excercising respective BCPs. Some Departments, including Environment, have already completed the exercise and updated BCPs within their area.

2..8  The effectiveness of a BCP is most clearly demonstrated when dealing with a live emergency. The Buncefield Incident (December 2005) is a recent case. Internal debriefs on this incident provides evidence as to the effectiveness of the Authority’s BCP, for example Fire & Rescue were able to respond to an additional 1,000 calls during the Incident. A departmental response to the effects of major incident on services to vulnerable clients is detailed later in the report (see pages XX)

3  Pandemic report (included as a chapter)

To be inserted once agreed

4  Corporate Strategy and Resilience

4..1  Each Department’s BCP representative can access all departments BCPs through the use of the shared drive. Whilst ACS Day Centres do not have this facility a template has been provided from which a site specific BCP can be formulated.

4..2  In past tests of BCPs there had been on the day notification, for example early morning calls at 6am or evenings at 7pm; on occasion a “sometime this week” notice to staff of such tests being undertaken.

4..3  More emphasis is now placed on business continuity of Council services across the whole of HCC with the revised planning scheme and organisational changes in SERMU, including the appointment of a Business Continuity Officer to closely monitor and co-ordinate such activities.

4..4  Business Continuity Plan Team The BCP Team Leader, Mike Collier, outlined the role undertaken by the Business Continuity Plan Team and arrangements for services provided in Hertfordshire. This role is responsible for chairing meetings of the Team and acting as the main advisor to the Chief Executive and/or Director of People & Property to activate the BCP. This role has expanded from a concentration on the County Hall BCP to include Apsley 1 and 2 and the new Stevenage offices. The BCP Team which currently comprises of three Team Leaders shortly to be increased to four who meet on a regular basis with departmental representatives and key functions officers present. The Topic Group has made a recommendation regarding the wisdom of all four team leaders being based at County Hall.

4..5  The current arrangements for the BCP Team, in particular the chairmanship, have had the effect of freeing time for SERMU staff to initiate the plans to deal with the incident arising.

4..6  The bomb hoax in November 2004 had provided a stringent test of the BCP as evacuation centres outside of County Hall, Hertford were utilised. Similarly, the recent Unison strike in July 2006 had been used as an exercise to ensure that services were prioritised and demonstrated how the Council could carry on operating during a substantial reduction in the workforce as would occur during a flu pandemic.

4..7  Given the number of incidents that had occurred which resulted in the BCP being tested the BCP Team Leader’s chief concerns related to not documenting all decisions taken during an incident. A training session led by a barrister concerning the “wash up” sessions following an incident had emphasised the importance of keeping thorough records.

4..8  A feature of the Hertfordshire Resilience Annual Conference, organised by the Emergency Planning Team, are details of ‘wash up’ sessions for major incidents, including challenging business continuity events, that had occurred during the year. This gave an opportunity for delegates from organisations locally and from all over the UK, all authorities and the media to learn from them.

4..9  IT CONTINGENCY The Group visited the IBM Offices in Hoddesdon which houses the back-up IT equipment for the Authority. This is designed to ensure that the IT infrastructure is maintained at all times. The information technology systems, including computer and telephone systems, are networked and in the event of one of the main offices being unable to operate contingency plans enable systems and staff to switch to other offices until the dysfunctional office becomes operative. In the long term The Way We Work Programme will develop the facilities at Apsley, County Hall and the new Stevenage offices so these offices would act as IT back up instead of the IBM offices. This would assist the disposal of other County Council premises in the future. The Authority is coming to the end of a three year contract for the use of IBM’s IT facilities but there was an option to extend for a period of 6 months if required.

TWWW – The Way We Work

4..10  Due to technological development there is a need to continue to update IT after the extensive The Way We Work Programme has been completed.

John Boulter drew attention to the response received from David Billing [E mail dated 12 /10/2006] copies of which were circulated at the meeting and the Topic Group considered the contents.

4..11  INTERNAL AUDIT REVIEW OF GENERIC ARRANGEMENTS Since the work on Business Continuity in respect of the ‘Millennium bug’, Internal Audit had included Business Continuity Management as a separate topic in its audit arrangement; as a result, it is included in the annual risk-based planning process through which the Internal Audit plan is drafted for submission to the HCC Audit Panel. This resulted in its inclusion in the plan for 2004/5 and 2006/7. The next review started in November 2006 and is likely to be completed in early 2007 with a final report available in March 2007.

4..12  Internal Audit have found that with the revised planning scheme and organisational changes in SERMU, including the appointment of a Business Continuity Officer to closely monitor and co-ordinate such activities, more emphasis is now placed on the BCP of services across the whole of HCC.

4..13  The Topic Group considered the progress made as at October 2006 with responding to the findings and meeting the specific recommendations contained in the last Internal Audit review concluded in April 2005. The BCP Team led by the Business Continuity Officer are monitoring the progress being made and assisting towards achieving the targets set. Functional Team leaders have reviewed the intra team arrangements and good progress has been made such that the new arrangements will be in force 31 /12 / 2006 rather than 31/12/07 earlier than stated in the report submitted to the Topic Group.

5  Departmental Planning and Resilience (including school emergency responsiveness)

5..1  Herts Fire & Rescue Service The Assistant Chief Fire Officer highlighted the key issues that had informed the Fire & Rescue Services Business Continuity Management Plan. In common with other services BCPs the Service’s BCM Plan contained the resource elements of information technology equipment, staff and buildings.

·  Service continuity is critical; moreover it is a statutory duty under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.

·  There is a high reliance on premises as most Fire & Rescue personnel cannot work from home

·  If a disaster scenario was occurring there would be a need to prioritise community needs and perhaps be at the expense of the Fire & Rescue Service

·  The majority of Fire & Rescue Service stations are location critical i.e especially when flooding occurs.

·  The Service has a large number of relatively small sites

·  24 hour emergency response for personnel and officers up to Executive level already exists

·  There is a vast level of experience in dealing with disaster and the aftermath

·  Equipment and resources are immediately available.

5..2  The Service’s premises are located throughout Hertfordshire. The Service HQ is based in Hertford and the Command & Control Centre (and Training Centre) at Stevenage. There are four Fire Safety / Divisional offices and 30 Fire Stations in Hertfordshire, of which 8 are key stations for BCM planning purposes. There are 41 appliances operated from the 30 Hertfordshire Fire Stations.

5..3  In the event of the loss of any these offices / stations designated staff would relocate to the nearest office / station within the hierarchy or area as appropriate. If there were insufficient personnel available to fully staff the appliances or offices, personnel will be switched to staff the maximum number of stations / offices possible. The BCP minimum is to ensure that the eight key stations are crewed at all times. Guidance is awaited from Central Government on the use of face masks in preparing for a flu pandemic.