Unimutual Business Continuity Planning Special Interest Groups
Since 2009, Unimutual organised networks of Members interested in collaborating and co-operating to improve their respective institutions' resilience to a significant adverse event or disaster. These groups, called Business Continuity Planning Special Interest Groups (BCP SIGs), meet in capital cities at least twice a year. The objective of these SIGs is to establish a forum to share sector experiences, provide mutual support and to promote the distribution of BCP knowledge to assist all Unimutual Members prepare to mitigate the impact of a disaster by ensuring alternative, mission-critical capability is available when disaster strikes.
Business continuity planning (BCP) is a rapidly developing topic in the management of higher education risk and is gaining the attention of both regulators and Auditors General. Across Australia large organisations are expected to demonstrate that they can continue to provide services to stakeholders following a significant or catastrophic event. For higher education, this operational resilience is extremely important, as serious interruptions to research or teaching programs can have significant downstream impacts in terms of future funding and academic reputation. Increasingly, internal, external auditors and governance managers are closely scrutinising such plans to ensure they are suitable for the demands of a higher education institution and provide a realistic response to significant loss scenarios. Examples include prolonged loss of utilities, fires, explosions, IT failures, outbreak of disease or other significant, high profile events which can adversely impact either operations or reputation of the institution.
It is interesting to note how multi-disciplinary each group is, with staff attending from areas as diverse as Security, IT Services, Insurance, Internal Audit, Corporate Services and Facilities as well as staff dedicated to BCP and emergency management. The meetings personify the cross-disciplinary nature of the management of risk and illustrate how beneficial inter-institutional co-operation is to addressing these important issues in a cost-effective manner.
Each BCP SIG meeting is called by a Member acting as convenor. The convenor sets the agenda and theme of the meeting, as well as providing an on-campus venue for participants. Popular BCP themes have included the development of Memoranda of Understanding for the shared use of facilities in the event of a significant incident, recovering from the loss of a library, and disaster response to a data centre fire. At each meeting, the hosting Member provides detailed information on the development and progress of their continuity plans, sharing with the assembled institutions the evolution of their programs and their successes and challenges as they continue to develop and advance their BCP towards maturity.
Unimutual is dedicated to assisting the sector address these and similar risks through a structured, methodical, comprehensive approach which tackles the challenges inherent in assisting both large and small institutions to mutually support each other during a significant loss event. The BCP SIGs provide a clearing house to share information and expertise and to facilitate the sharing of resources of Members within a region in order to promptly and cost effectively mitigate a significant loss event to any one or more Members through taking a mutual approach.
You will find resources below to assist in the development of your BCP program and information regarding past BCP SIG meetings. Please contact Harry Rosenthal on 0409 156 746 if you require further assistance and support for your BCP project.
