Contingency Planning, Business Continuity and Organisational Preparedness
Under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is defined as a Category 1 Responder. During any emergency that occurs in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the role of the Council is to support and assist the emergency services in life saving and operational activities and then take the lead alongside its communities to implement recovery.
Supporting our Communities
The council recognises that in order to effectively support Kensington and Chelsea’s communities in the event of emergencies in the Borough, it needs to continuously review, refresh and test its contingency arrangements, benchmarking them against Resilience Standards for London.
We also want to include and work alongside our communities, volunteers, groups, and organisations in the response, so we are setting out some information here.
The Resilience Team
The Resilience Team consists of a Resilience Manager and three Resilience Advisors, who lead on specialist areas of Community Engagement, Major Incidents and Business Continuity, assisted by a Support Officer.
The team is made up of:
- Pinakin Patel - Strategic Head of Policy, Performance & Resilience
- Jack Wills, Resilience Advisor - Major Emergencies
- Phillip West, Business Continuity Resilience Advisor
- Rachel Cudjoe, Resilience Team Support Officer
- The Role of the Resilience Team
-
Leading this work is the Council’s Resilience Team. The role of the Resilience team is to write and approve plans to ensure that:
- there is a structure for Council departments to act together and be coordinated
- to make sure the Council’s response is coordinated with local, regional and national partners
- that Service Areas are aware of their responsibilities in an emergency and can activate plans swiftly and precisely
To do this the Team:
- In conjunction with local partners from the Emergency Services and other key organisations, assesses the risk of emergencies occurring in the Borough, publishing a Borough Risk Register and uses the Register to inform its contingency planning activity.
- Puts in place approved and tested emergency plans for various types of incident, maintains the plans ensuring they reflect local issues and keeps them updated to include learning from incidents, regional and national guidance in addition to training, as well as exercising the contingency plans and the staff who will deliver them.
- Recruits, trains and exercises a volunteer contingency response team, of over 180 people to staff the operational response structure that coordinates the Council’s response to incidents.
- Assists Council departments to put in place business continuity management arrangements and maintains the Council’s Corporate Business Continuity Plan.
- It works with other local responders to enhance coordination.
- Provides advice and assistance to business and voluntary organisations about business continuity management.
The borough risk register
The Borough Risk Register summarises the types of emergencies that may affect the borough.
Risks can be graded by their expected impact and likelihood to provide a way of prioritising which risks need to be managed or specifically planned for.
The Borough Risk Register considers the risk of emergencies which would cause significant harm to people or the environment within the borough localising content for the London Risk Register.
The Contingency Management Plan
The Contingency Management Plan is RBKC’s guide to emergency response and recovery, it explains how we will manage and coordinate our response to an emergency in addition to what resources we have available to do this. This document is supported by a wide range of other emergency plans either for specific hazards such as floods or common consequences such as the need for an emergency centre.
Contingency Management Plan also outlines how RBKC will work with other agencies across London as part of the response and linking to wider coordination arrangements laid out in the London Local Authorities Concept of Operations for Emergency Response & Recovery, London Strategic Coordination Protocol and London Recovery Coordination Framework.
If you would like to view this plan, please email [email protected].
If you would like further information on how to prepare yourself for an emergency, please read the Gov.uk advice on preparing for emergencies.
The Council’s Multi-agency Flood Plan
The Multi Agency Flood Plan is produced by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea on behalf of and in consultation with Kensington and Chelsea Resilience Forum. This document outlines the multi-agency response arrangement to a flood in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea considering the following sources of flooding
If you would like to view this plan, please email [email protected].
Please see our extreme weather page for more information on:
- What you need to know on dealing with flooding
- What to do after a flood
You can also use the Gov.uk online tool to see if your property is at risk of flooding.
How to prepare your business for an emergency?
Business Continuity
Business continuity is about having a plan to deal with difficult situations, so your organisation can continue to function with as little disruption as possible and return to normal as quickly as possible after a crisis or incident. Statistically, half of all businesses that experience a disruption without a business continuity plan will fail within 12 months.
We create a business continuity plan by first analysing our business in a process called the business impact analysis (BIA). Simply we are trying to identify what we offer (products and services). How long can we manage without delivering them before the business ceases to exist. Then what could disrupt their delivery, i.e. loss of supplier, staff or other aspects we depend on.
After this, we put in place a plan to counter this happening, known as the Business Continuity Plan (BCP). This will comprise actions and instructions to be carried out in a disruption situation.
Advantages of having a Business Continuity Plan
- A good plan could prevent your business from collapsing
- Undertaking the process can identify other business efficiencies
- It can reduce your insurance
- It may be a requirement if you want to bid for a tender
Whether you are a business owner, resident, or employee, If you contact us, we will always do what we can to help you or steer you in the right direction for further help.
View the government guidance on managing business continuity.