PARKES SHIRE COUNCIL BUSINESS CONTINUITY POLICY

Transcription

1 PARKES SHIRE COUNCIL BUSINESS CONTINUITY POLICY

2 PARKES SHIRE COUNCIL BUSINESS CONTINUITY POLICY CONTENTS INTRODUCTION... 1 PURPOSE... 1 POLICY... 1 DEFINITIONS... 1 RESPONSIBILITY... 1 RELATED DOCUMENTATION... 2 BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN... 2 PROCEDURE... 3 METHODOLOGY... 3 BCP TESTING AND TRAINING EXERCISES... 4 BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN MAINTENANCE... 5 REPORTING... 6 REFERENCES... 6 LIST OF FIGURES DOCUMENT VERSION CONTROL Ref No. Created by First Adopted Last Modified Review Period ECM Steve Barry on 25/09/2007 OCM 6/11/2007 Res No Anthony McGrath March Twelve months

3 INTRODUCTION Parkes Shire Council has determined the need for a formal Business Continuity Plan as a basis for assuring business continuity in the event of a disruption to services provided by the Council. PURPOSE To both prevent disruptions to Council's services and to recover critical systems following a disruption. POLICY That Council implement procedures and allocate resources to meet the identified contingency and recovery objectives of the essential and critical business services as outlined in the Business Continuity Plan. The Plan must be current. DEFINITIONS BCP DRT Management Plan Business Continuity Plan Disaster Recovery Team Includes the Revenue Policy, Operations Plan and, Long Term Plans RESPONSIBILITY The General Manager is responsible for the implementation and management of this policy. Business Continuity Policy Page 1

4 RELATED DOCUMENTATION Document Relationship Map Risk Management Plan Management Plan Emergency Management Plan Business Continuity Plan Business Continuity Plan The BCP consists of the following documents: Business Continuity Plan Business Continuity Policy (This Document) Readiness Assessment Audit BCP Operational Plan(s) Service Area Plans (to be developed) Business Continuity Policy Page 2

5 PROCEDURE The following procedures will be followed in order to implement and maintain the plan: 1. At budget development a review of the resources required is undertaken and reflected in the Management Plan to meet the identified contingency and recovery objectives. 2. On an annual basis, a risk assessment and review is to be undertaken to determine that the requirements of the BCP are still current. 3. Testing will occur as set out in the Operational Plans or as determined by the DRT. The results of testing will be used to ensure recovery time objectives can be met and for budget purposes. 4. All staff will be trained at induction and thereafter at the time of testing or review. Methodology This section describes the methodology used to develop the BCP, with the expectation that the methodology will be used frequently to review and update the BCP. The methodology is intended to: Develop a service focused protection and recovery plan; Provide management with an understanding of the total effort required to develop and maintain an effective protection and recovery effort; and Analyse the organisation in a rational, methodical fashion and determine the extent of vulnerability and the impact of interruptions to the business processes of each service and derive appropriate protection/recovery responses. The overall approach to the development of the BCP is depicted below, and a description of each stage follows: 1. Review Organisation 2. Business Impact Assessment 3. Determine Recovery Priorities 5. Specific Response per service 4. General Strategies by Class Stage 1 Review Organisation - In order to gain a full appreciation of the current environment, from a community service point of view, consultation with a range of Council staff is required and existing corporate documentation is reviewed. Stage 2 Business Impact Assessment The next activity was to decompose the organisation into services and carry out a Business Impact Assessment (BIA). The BIA considers the business impact of an outage or loss of the service and estimates the maximum allowable outage time or time the service is unavailable. Other business impacts could include claims from customers for some loss because of a Council outage, inability to carry out public works, adverse publicity or liabilities resulting from inability to meet regulatory/legislative requirements. Stage 3 Determine Recovery Priorities - On the basis of the BIA considerations, the protection and recovery priority for each service was determined using a scoring mechanism. This Business Continuity Policy Page 3

6 mechanism considers the factors of cost, vulnerability (i.e. risk), business impact and the extent to which customer service is disrupted. This mechanism then allows the various services to be scored. Stage 4 Assign General Strategies By Class In this stage, a General Response Matrix is developed which assigns protection and recovery strategies (selected from a menu of strategies) for each service. The response is defined as the application of one or more strategies to achieve protection or recovery. Responses comprise both principles and specific solutions to achieve the outcome. The General Response Matrix provides a summarised view of potential protection and recovery strategies, which are applicable to each service. Stage 5 Assign Specific Responses This stage concludes the process by assigning specific strategies (Specific Response Matrix) to each service based on those identified in Stage 4, and the priorities identified in Stage 3. BCP Testing and Training Exercises Testing enables BCP deficiencies to be identified and addressed. Testing also helps evaluate the ability of recovery staff to implement the BCP quickly and effectively. BCP elements should be tested to confirm the accuracy of individual procedures and the overall effectiveness of the plan. The following areas should be addressed: Recovery procedures at the DRC Coordination among recovery teams Internal and external communications and connectivity System performance using alternate equipment Restoration of normal operations Notification procedures To derive the most value from the BCP, the Emergency Services Officer should develop scenarios designed to test the success or otherwise of the BCP. The scenarios should be a combination of high, medium and low impact using cold and hot simulation. The use of test objectives and success criteria enable the effectiveness of each plan element and the overall plan to be assessed. The test plan should include a schedule detailing the periods for each test and test participants. The test plan should also delineate clear scope, scenario, and logistics. The scenario chosen may be a worst-case incident or an incident most likely to occur and should mimic reality as closely as possible. There are two basic formats for exercises: Cold simulations - Participants in a classroom environment exercise walk through the procedures without any actual recovery operations occurring. Classroom exercises are the most basic and least costly of the two types of exercises and should be conducted before performing a functional exercise. Hot simulations - Functional exercises are more extensive than classroom exercises, requiring the event to be simulated. Scripts may be written out for role players pretending to be external organisation contacts, or there may be actual inter-agency and vendor participation. A functional exercise might include actual relocation to the alternate site and/or system cutover. Test results and lessons learned should be documented and reviewed by test participants and other personnel as appropriate. Information collected during the test and post-test reviews that improve plan effectiveness should be incorporated into the BCP. Training for personnel with BCP responsibilities should complement testing. Training should be provided at least annually or when major changes occur to the Council s systems, organisational structure or resources. Once a BCP has been created there can be a tendency for management to relax leading to the situation where the BCP becomes out of date or the procedures required to successfully implement business continuity are unfamiliar to staff. Ultimately, contingency plan Business Continuity Policy Page 4

7 personnel should be trained to the extent that that they are able to execute their respective recovery procedures without aid of the actual document. This is an important goal in the event that paper or electronic versions of the plan are unavailable for the first few hours due to the extent of the disaster. Recovery personnel should be trained on the following plan elements: Purpose of the plan Cross-team coordination and communication Reporting procedures Security requirements Team-specific processes (Notification/Activation, Recovery and Return to Normal Operation Phases) Individual responsibilities (Notification/Activation, Recovery and Return to Normal Operation Phases). Business Continuity Plan Maintenance Maintenance of the BCP is of utmost importance to ensure currency of recovery and procedures and operations. This means developing and keeping the test plan and implementation plan current and coordinated. All changes to the business, organisational structure and IT environments must be considered for inclusion in and for updating of the BCP. The BCP may require updates if problems or changes occur, including the following: Disaster Recovery Test results Change in business/organisation environment Change in staff Change in staff responsibilities Change in physical environment New or changes to applications/data sources New or changes to equipment/infrastructure acquisitions A formal review of a BCP should be conducted annually or whenever significant changes occur to any element of the plan, and a quarterly Disaster Recovery Readiness Assessment Audit should be conducted. The purpose of the reviews and the audits is to identify any changes to ensure that these and any other updates identified since the previous review have been included in the BCP. Items to be reviewed for BCP update include: Personnel changes including names and contact information of team members Names and contact information of vendors, including alternate and off-site vendor contacts Priority changes Vital records (electronic and hardcopy) Disaster Recovery test procedures and results Backup procedures Recovery procedures Contingency Plans DRC changes Business Continuity Policy Page 5

8 Equipment Communications and network and data facilities Particular attention should be paid to the review of the recovery equipment configurations to ensure that the business has the required equipment to restore the business functionality as quickly and smoothly as possible. The maintenance of the BCP will be the responsibility of the Disaster Recovery Coordinator whose task is to incorporate all approved revisions and to ensure that the BCP manual is maintained and can meet RTO. Copies of the BCP should be provided to recovery personnel and for storage in the DRK, the DRC, an external site and with the Disaster Recovery Coordinator. Storing a copy of the BCP at an external site ensures its availability and good condition in the event local BCP copies cannot be accessed because of a disaster. A record of copies of the BCP and to whom they were distributed should be maintained. The Council should coordinate frequently with emergency services to ensure that impacts caused by changes within either organisation/s will be reflected in the BCP. Although some changes may be quite visible, others will require additional analysis. The Business Impact Assessment should be reviewed periodically and updated to identify new contingency requirements or priorities. As new technologies become available, preventive controls may be enhanced and recovery strategies may be modified. Reporting The General Manager shall report on the implementation and testing of the BCP at least annually to Council. REFERENCES HB 221:2004 : Business Continuity Management Business Continuity Policy Page 6