Agenda item

-       5:30pm

The Cabinet Member for Business Transformation and Customers and Executive Director attended to present a report about Emergency and Business Continuity Planning.

Since 2005 Chesterfield Borough Council (CBC) had contracted with Derbyshire County Council (DCC) to deliver an Emergency Planning and Business Continuity service. To further strengthen the capacity and co-ordination of emergency or business continuity events two senior CBC officers, the Service Director - Corporate and Strategic Health & Safety and Risk Manager, hold emergency planning liaison roles. These officers would work alongside the DCC Emergency Planning team and CBC’s Senior Leadership Team and Corporate Leadership Team to respond to an emergency or business continuity event. Senior officers receive regular Emergency Planning and Business Continuity training, including training on Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme (JESIP) principles which would be used in response to a major multi agency incident.

The Council had a detailed emergency plan and business continuity plan in place, which was regularly updated. Service specific business continuity plans were also regularly reviewed and updated.

The Council leadership teams would review, agree and document the priority services for protection and restoration in an emergency. This process would then inform the activities which would need to be undertaken when the business continuity plan was invoked. Individual Corporate Business Continuity Plans existed in respect of winter planning, flood planning, flu pandemic and more recently Coronavirus.

The number and type of strategic and tactical groups that would be initiated to effectively manage the emergency or business continuity event would depend on the size and scale of the event. This would be determined when an emergency or business continuity event was triggered.

The officer’s report detailed the business continuity structure which had been implemented to enable the management of coronavirus business continuity activity across Derbyshire.

The Covid-19 Emergency Planning/Business Continuity report presented to Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum in November 2020 outlined how the Coronavirus pandemic had presented unprecedented risks, disruption and changes to Council working practices. It highlighted that the business continuity plans needed further review to ensure they incorporated all the learning from the new pandemic and were updated appropriately. Over the period of the pandemic to date, Business Continuity Plans had been updated and any new developments had been incorporated. Urgent work had been carried out to ensure that the Council had arrangements in place to create and maintain safe working environments within council buildings and workspaces which included the creation of a network of support to enable home working for many of the Council’s staff. Where there were capacity pressures on key services, such as the Crematorium, some staff were redeployed to provide service support as part of our business continuity arrangements.

Objective 1 - How successful have the Council’s plans and actions been in response to the Covid-19 pandemic?

A number of further arrangements had continued to be kept in place specifically in response to the Coronavirus pandemic e.g. three task and finish groups, regular engagement with partners through the Local Resilience Forum (LRF) emergency response arrangements and Coronavirus focussed leadership team meetings. Each of the three task and finish groups focussed on the response and recovery of a key theme: Economic, Community and Resources. Both the Economic and Community themes had established strategic recovery plans, which have been previously approved by Cabinet and were in implementation stage.

It had been broadly acknowledged that the work of the Resources T&F group along with managers, teams and Trade Union colleagues across the organisation had been effective. There have been no staff deaths attributed to Coronavirus and only four RIDDOR coronavirus incidents reported since the pandemic began.

At the end of 2021, the Council had managed to maintain service delivery in line with Government restrictions and Council H&S guidance.

One of the main risks to maintaining business continuity across services was the availability of staff to deliver the service. This was being monitored on a weekly basis via the Resources task and finish group and in conjunction with the Corporate Leadership Team to proactively respond to any emerging staffing issues.

Objective 2 – What lessons have been learnt from the Council’s emergency and business continuity planning relating to the Covid-19 pandemic.

One of the key attributes to how effective the Council had been during the pandemic had been a willingness to learn, be decisive and apply changes without delay.

The key areas of learning were:

·        Don’t be afraid to change, it was the constant change that kept things on track;

·        A no blame culture - learning from one another had been very beneficial;

·        Use data and experience to plan for a better future;

·        The decision making process which had been developed over time had worked well, there had been:

-      Quick access to decisions when required;

-      Strong relationship between governance and decision-making groups;

-      Open communication.

·        Regular virtual meetings and updates across the organisation had worked well.

It had been key to utilise the strengths of staff and the Council had sustained business continuity due to the dedication and commitment of Council employees. The Council would continue to work with partners across the business continuity network to keep up to date, incorporate shared learning and ensure that business continuity plans were kept up to date.

Further to the November 2020 report to Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum, the Council was now in a far more resilient position to respond to and effectively manage future challenges.

Objective 3 - To consider other emergencies which could occur and plan a response.

From an emergency planning perspective, a response to an emergency was dependent on the size and scale of the emergency or business continuity event. This would determine the nature and scale of the response and would be determined when an emergency or business continuity event was triggered.

With regard to the consideration of ‘other emergencies which may occur’, the current emergency plan incorporated the likely emergency events which were considered possible.

There was a risk regarding staff not continuing to comply with Council Covid-19 safety measures over the longer term. Many of the previous Government restrictions had been removed, but the Council had maintained a more cautious approach as there remained a threat to staffing levels due to isolation and positive testing numbers.

Since the report to Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum in November 2020, the corporate responsibility for business continuity had been re-assigned to the Service Director - Corporate. The Service Director had recently recruited a Strategic Health & Safety and Risk Manager, who would work with the Service Director in the emergency planning liaison roles on behalf of the Council. There were plans for a strategic review regarding the future of emergency planning and business continuity and it was suggested that a further report would be brought to a future Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum meeting to outline this work.

Members thanked CBC staff for their work during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Members noted that DCC had not been mentioned in references to partnership working and suggested that there were learning points to raise with DCC as joint working could have been more productive. The Executive Director advised that DCC had participated in the LRF for Derbyshire which had been a very effective group.

Members enquired about the support which had been provided to staff who had been required to work from home and then adjusting to returning to working in offices in the recovery phase. The Executive Director explained that staff had been provided with the equipment they would need to carry out their work, digital support progress had been significant and staff had been surveyed to understand the preferences going forward which had found that 80% of staff wanted to continue with a hybrid approach to working.

Members asked about how information had been shared between Local Authorities and the Executive Director advised that information and examples of best practice had been shared through the LRF.

Members noted that climate change would increase the instances of excessive heat which would increasingly become an issue in work places and enquired whether this would fall under emergency planning. The Executive Director advised that this would be a health and safety risk and he believed that an emergency response would be required.

RESOLVED –

1.   That the Emergency and Business Continuity Planning report be noted.

2.   That a report regarding the strategic review of the future of emergency planning and business continuity be brought to a future Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum meeting.