The Business Continuity Institute (BCI) and Business Continuity Expo 2008 have set up a petition on the 10 Downing Street website urging government to take the issue more seriously.
The petition asks the prime minister to create “a designated lead department within central government to coordinate, initiate and oversee business continuity management within all other government departments.”
The petitioners pushes for a long-overdue department make the point that currently responsibility for business continuity falls under everything from BERR to the Cabinet Office, Communities and Local Government, Culture, Media and Sport, Defence, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Health, Work and Pensions, Justice and Transport ministries.
Says Richard Fitzhugh, content manager for Business Continuity Expo: “Where there is dilution of activities amongst all the various ministries and government bodies – there is also dilution of action and responsibility. Without a keystone to provide oversight across all ministries with activities and responsibilities in this area, it is impossible to have a coherent strategy.”
And he adds: “Businesses are frankly confused. One of the top experts in the industry recently compiled an easy-to-use guide on who to call in an incident. It ended up running to over 200 pages – and this can’t be right.”
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