Business Continuity Planning (BCP)

What is Business Continuity?

Business Continuity ensures that essential functions can continue during and after a disruption. At The University of Manchester, we maintain comprehensive plans across the institution to prepare for incidents that may affect students, staff, or operations. These plans provide a flexible framework to manage scenarios such as staff absences or IT disruptions.

Our Commitment to Staff and Students

While major incidents like fires are rare, preparedness is essential. As part of our commitment to being an Agile and Sustainable institution - key pillars of our Professional Services Vision - each Faculty and Directorate has identified critical services and developed Business Continuity Plans. These plans are reviewed annually and tested biennially to ensure resilience and continuity of service.

Strategic Aim

The Business Continuity Management System aims to strengthen the University’s resilience, enabling continued excellence in teaching and learning while safeguarding people, assets, information, reputation, and institutional values.

For full details, please refer to the UoM Business Continuity Policy.

Objectives of the Business Continuity Management System

The University of Manchester will:

• Conduct business impact analysis to identify risk and prioritise critical services.
• Determine strategies for mitigating the impact of specific risks and threats.
• Develop business continuity plans to ensure the university can respond to disruption in a timely manner.
• Take all reasonably practicable measures to ensure the continuation of its critical services during any period of disruption.
• Develop training and exercising to validate plans and ensure they are regularly reviewed and updated.
• Review and debrief major incidents and disruptions to identify lessons and develop an implementation plan to learn from these.
• Provide adequate education, training and resources to ensure the successful implementation of business continuity management.

How to make your own departments' BCP

1. Complete a Business Impact Analysis – In the form of an Excel spreadsheet questionnaire, your department can determine and evaluate the potential effects of an interruption to critical business operations as a result of a disaster, accident or emergency. Use the BIA Checklist to help you complete the BIA.
2. After conducting a BIA, it should be easier to identify which functions are essential for your area as well as identifying the systems, people, equipment, facilities and suppliers that you rely on to deliver the function or service. You will also have started to identify the mitigations you can put in place to continue to deliver the function during a disruption.
3. Plan development –You should use the BCP template to continue to develop your back-up plans that can be deployed if a resource or function is compromised? This includes sections to identify who should be contacted and the steps to recovery. (Flow charts may be useful to visually explain the process)
4. Plan testing, maintenance and updating – It is important to have practiced a walkthrough with your plan – how well did the walkthrough go? What are the takeaways? How often will you need to revise and update your BCP?

Useful Checklists and Templates

Who is the BCP Lead in your area?