Press releases

Ten years of warnings have gone largely unheeded leaving UK plc vulnerable to disaster and disruption.  ‘A Decade of Living Dangerously’, published today, reveals that organisations continue to show signs of complacency, despite growing clamour for action from regulators, insurers and customers. Despite pockets of improvement, some areas have shown a decline, leaving the overall picture near-stagnant when it comes to business readiness to face disruption.

The report, published by the Chartered Management Institute and Cabinet Office, warns that organisations are not doing enough to guard against technology and utility failures, enforced staff absence, or the impact of extreme weather.  It argues that many UK employers are ignoring the concerns outlined in the National Risk Register, although in limited areas there have been improvements. Moreover, the report demonstrates that where resilience measures are undertaken, companies are better placed to survive and thrive.

Based on the views of 1,012 senior executives from across the public, private and voluntary sectors, key findings include:

- Low level protection: only half (52 per cent) of the respondents questioned said their organisation had plans in place to cope with business disruption. While this figure is worryingly low, it is a 5 per cent increase on last year, and the highest score ever recorded by the survey. 

- Casual approach: 32 per cent of organisations don’t test their continuity plans at all, a figure that remains largely unchanged since 1999 (30 per cent).  Just 21 per cent of Boards take responsibility for business continuity management, down 8 points in two years.  Employees suggesting business continuity is seen as important by their employer has also dropped – by 12 points – in the past year.

- Registering risk: UK managers are most worried about electronic attacks (58 per cent), human disease knocking out the workforce (57 per cent), the impact of severe weather (52 per cent), and destruction of critical infrastructure (50 per cent).  However, just 42 per cent of organisations have plans in place to cater for IT loss and only 30 per cent are prepared to cope with enforced absence of staff or severe weather.

Since the study was last undertaken, in February 2008, it has become clear that the major risk feared by UK organisations has been loss of IT (40 per cent) – a finding consistent with the fears expressed over the past decade.  Unsurprisingly, given recent conditions, 25 per cent also said their business had suffered due to extreme weather, but today more (44 per cent) are worried about the impact than they were ten years ago (18 per cent).  In the current environment, it is also worth noting that 25 per cent have experienced problems due to negative publicity or damage to brand reputation resulting from poor business continuity planning.

Petra Wilton, director of policy and research at the Chartered Management Institute says: “Despite warnings, and in spite of the huge publicity surrounding natural and malicious disasters, it seems that employers still have a long way to go before they can claim to be truly resilient.  Particularly now, with revenue and cash-flow under pressure, the last thing any business needs is disruption to their services. In short, the UK will continue to suffer lost revenue unless business continuity management is taken seriously from the top, and throughout organisations.”

Bruce Mann, director of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat in the Cabinet Office, says: “It is easy to put off attending to risks, and let thought of business continuity preparation slip down the agenda. This short sightedness can be extremely costly. A failure to provide adequate protection could mean more than a minor headache lasting a few hours or days, but could mean a loss of trade to competitors and the eventual failure of an organisation.”

The report, called ‘A Decade of Living Dangerously’, is available by clicking here.

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Further Information
Mike Petrook / Jo Bowles, Institute Press Office
Tel: 020 7497 0496; outside office hours: 07931 302 877
Email: press.office@managers.org.uk

NOTES TO EDITORS
As the champion of management, the Chartered Management Institute shapes and supports the managers of tomorrow, helping them deliver results in a dynamic world.  The Institute helps set and raise standards in management, encouraging development to improve performance.  Moreover, with in-depth research and regular policy surveys of its 81,000 individual members and 450 corporate members, the Institute has a deep understanding of the key issues.  The Chartered Management Institute came into being on 1 April 2002, as a result of the Institute of Management being granted a Royal Charter.