Transcript Slide 1

IMPLEMENTING BUSINESS
CONTINUITY:
A BANK OF ENGLAND
PERSPECTIVE
STEPHEN P COLLINS
BANK OF ENGLAND
EFFECTIVE PLANNING
FOR AN EFFECTIVE CONTINGENCY PLAN, YOU NEED TO:
• Understand your business – what are the key activities?
• Assess the impact – on your institution and on others – of
not being able to carry them out.
• Establish recovery time objectives – the point where loss of
a key activity becomes critical to the business.
• Estimate what is required to provide an acceptable level of
service, eg:
- minimum staffing levels over time
- minimum work-station and telephony requirements over
time
- minimum PC and server requirements over time
- application requirements over time
RESILIENCE MEASURES
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Planning
Testing/Exercising
Contingency Sites
IT Resilience
Split-Site Working
Remote Access
BlackBerries
SCENARIO PLANNING
What are we planning for ?
Five possible types of event:
• SERVICES : Loss of power, water, sewage to Bank locations
• COMMUNICATIONS : Loss or severe degradation of public
and/or private telephone networks, including mobile networks
• SYSTEMS : Acute systems failure (eg successful virus attack)
• STAFF : Significant numbers of staff unable/unwilling to travel
to work (eg transport disruption, civil emergency, flu pandemic)
• PREMISES : Loss of access to single or multiple Bank locations
(eg fire/ flood/ bomb/ something worse)
HIERARCHY OF PLANS
• Bank of England uses an integrated 3-tier structure of business continuity
plans
– High level plan
• Used by executive and senior management: provides an outline plan of
action, assigns responsibilities, identifies key people, and sets out who
will be involved in the recovery process. Written and maintained by
Business Continuity Division.
– Core and Crisis Function checklists
• Each function has an individual Action Summary checklist which
briefly sets out the key actions required to cover each function. These
are brief, cut across areas, and are in note format. Set format, but
maintained by lead areas.
– Local area plans
• These set out what each area needs to do in the aftermath of an
operational disruption, and who is responsible. Covers both core/
crisis functions and other functions. Are more detailed and cover a
longer time frame. We do not impose any set format for these plans.
Business Continuity planning – structure
and ownership
Drafting and testing
responsibilities
Plan ownership
Executive Team
Local Area
management
High Level Plan
Business Continuity
Division
Core and crisis functions
action checklists
BCD and local areas
All Staff
Local area plans
WHY TEST?
• To check the assumptions implicit in your plan
• To check that all parties have sufficient knowledge
of the plan, and that the plan is adequately
documented
• To check that proposed actions are achievable
• To check business resilience
• To check that strategies, technology are appropriate
• To generate confidence in the plan
WHAT SHOULD YOU TEST?
• Processes, not individuals
• Communication strategies
– External interaction (customers, media, etc)
– Contacting staff
• Plan content
– Logical, realistic, no assumptions
• Interdependencies
– Internal & external, including links with civil authorities
• Technology solutions
– Component level, data centres, data restoration
• Alternative locations
– Recovery sites, reciprocal arrangements
GENERIC FORMS OF TESTS
• Review of local area plans (do they complement or conflict?).
Undertaken by a third party.
• Tabletop walk-through. Undertaken by the people mentioned in the
plan – talk-through a given scenario. Focus on training,
familiarisation with roles, procedures, responsibilities. But no need
to arrange elaborate facilities or communications.
• Simulation. Uses a predefined scenario. May be announced or
unannounced. As realistic as possible. Takes place in real time.
May bring in “players” to act the roles of external bodies. May test
facilities, communications, systems. All decisions and actions
generate real responses and consequences from other players
• Tests of kit, individual processes, premises.
Types of tests used at the
Bank of England
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Phone cascades
Desk-top scenario walk-throughs
‘Acted-out’ exercises (testing crisis functions)
‘Real-time’ scenario-based crisis management
exercises (both internal and market-wide)
• Connectivity (kit) tests
• ‘Invacuation’ and ‘evacuation’ tests
• Live working from contingency sites
MARKET WIDE EXERCISE - HISTORY
• Annual exercise to test the resilience of
financial sector.
• First MWE in 2003
• Previous scenarios have included floods,
and bombs – desktop and live-exercise
simulation.
MWE 2006
• Human influenza pandemic.
• 70 UK firms took part with some 4,000
participants.
• Largest ever business continuity exercise.
• 6 week “rising tide” scenario covering several
months in exercise time.
– Starting at WHO stage 4 (limited human-tohuman transmission) to stage 6 (widespread,
worldwide impact.)
THE TRIPARTITE
AUTHORITIES
HM TREASURY
BANK OF ENGLAND
FINANCIAL SERVICES AUTHORITY
GOVERNMENT/EMERGENCY SERVICES
COBR
HMT
Gold
DMO
TRIPARTITE
AUTHORITIES
Standing Committee
BC
Sub-Group
Tripartite
Press
Group
FSA
liaison
BoE
liaison
FSC website/
Teleconference
CMBCG
All
Firms
Members/
Participants
Exchanges
Clearing Houses
FINANCIAL
PRIVATE SECTOR
Settlement systems
Counterparties
Markets
Payment Systems
MMLG
FXJSC
Other groups
SCHEMATIC OF TRIPARTITE/MARKET LIAISON
FOR CRISIS MANAGEMENT
• Tripartite elements • Tripartite/market elements • Wider government elements • Tripartite/government elements • Tripartite/market info. exchange • Tripartite/wider government links • Tripartite info. to market -
GLOSSARY
• BC Sub-Group – Business Continuity Sub-Group of the
Tripartite Sub-Committee
• FSA – Financial Services Authority
• BoE – Bank of England
• HMT – Her Majesty’s Treasury
• DMO – Debt Management Office
• COBRA – Cabinet Office Briefing Room
• Gold – Strategic Planning Committee
• FSC – Financial Sector Continuity Website (www.fsc.gov.uk)
• CMBCG – Cross Market Business Continuity Group
• MMLG – Money Markets Liaison Group
• FXJSC – Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee