The Legislative Assemblies Business Continuity Network (LABCoN) offers the following services to help Parliaments develop as resilient organisations.
Training/Accreditation
Are you currently working within a legislative assembly with a professional interest and expertise in business continuity and are seeking to further your knowledge of business continuity best practices or wish to obtain accreditation/certification?
LABCoN in partnership with the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) provides training and certification in the principles and practices of business continuity management.
This course provides you with the comprehensive and practical foundational knowledge of business continuity management that you can bring back to your organization to build and strengthen your organizational resilience.
The CBCI Certification provides comprehensive business continuity training that covers the full range of practices used by business continuity professionals to develop, implement, and maintain an effective business continuity management system.
The course has been created specifically for business continuity enthusiasts within a legislative assembly setting, in line with the new Good Practice Guidelines (GPG) 7.0, which draws on the knowledge of practitioners from all over the world and on information from ISO standards.
For further information on our training/certification program, please contact the please contact our secretariat email and one of our trainers will contact you.
Secretariat Contact: labcon@leg.bc.ca
Critical Friend Review of Organisational Resilience
LABCoN members have developed a Critical Friend Review (CFR) which can help identify how you can develop your resilience arrangements within your Legislative Assembly:
Introduction
This document provides information about what is involved in a Critical Friend Review (CFR) of a Legislative Assembly’s organisation resilience. We recognise that each Parliament is different. For example, where there are upper and lower Houses, we would need to ensure both Houses are represented equally. While the CRF ‘themes’ (see below) to be addressed are our stating point, we invite each Parliament to suggest which of these areas they would like us to focus on, or indeed exclude, as appropriate.
Background
Parliaments need to meet public expectations that it would be able to continue to deliver its core functions of legislating and holding a Government to account, even, or perhaps especially, in the event of major disruptions.
A critical friend review (CFR) will provide a brief report showing where a Legislative Assembly’s Organisational Resilience capability aligns to industry standards and where there may be areas to be developed.
What’s involved?
LABCoN members have developed a framework to review the Organisational Resilience in Legislative Assemblies (ORLA) based on the industry standard for resilience organisational (BS65000). Managers responsible for providing the key services that enable ‘Parliament to sit and be seen to be sitting’ will be interviewed via MS Teams. Using their responses to the questions posed by the review team, together with a review of any supporting documentation, the CFR Team will comment on where there is evidence of a resilience capability and where they might be opportunities for improvement.
Where will evidence of resilience come from?
The themes to be reviewed include:
- Leadership and culture (evidence that the Leadership in Parliament actively engage in developing a culture of resilience).
- Anticipation and assessment of the risks of business disruption, incidents, and crises (evidence of horizon scanning and managing potential risks of a business disruption).
- Crisis management capability (evidence of how ‘top management’ will manage a crisis such as a catastrophic failure of a Chamber).
- Continuity planning and incident management capability (evidence that each area has business continuity plans in place and escalation process are established).
- Strategy, governance, and integration (evidence that Organisational Resilience is integrated in wider planning and governance arrangements).
- Operational resilience – including utility resilience, ITDR, maintenance regime, etc. (evidence that the estate infrastructure and IT architecture can manage disruptions).
- People – personal resilience (evidence that HR issues, including morale, well-being, and workforce planning are actively addressed to ensure competent people are available).
- Physical / Cyber security (evidence that physical and cyber security arrangements are in place to ensure a safe working environment).
Who will undertake the benchmarking process?
The benchmarking process will be undertaken by business resilience professionals who include:
- members of the Legislative Assembly Business Continuity Network (LABCoN);
- familiar with the workings of a Legislative Assembly,
- competent auditors, and
- who have a sound understanding of the OR m standard.
What will happen to the report?
A draft report will be shared with the SRO for comment who may share the final report with relevant boards as appropriate. The review team will also share key findings, especially areas of good practice, with LABCoN members.
An open agenda
The critical friend review is a partnership between the Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) from the Legislative Assembly and the Review Team to help the Parliament develop as a resilient organisation. Being open and honest with the Review Team is key to the success of the review and you should expect the same in return.
Interviews are part of the process – but the Review Team may also read key documentation submitted that supports the development of organisational resilience.
The SRO role
The Review Team will feed its understanding gained from the interviews and examining documentation into a review report, which will be delivered to the SRO. We encourage interviewees to speak freely and frankly because everything in the review report will be non-attributable and confidential. The SRO will be responsible for arranging access to the appropriate mangers taking part in this review.
The roles of Review Team
Review Team Leader (RTL) – Interviewer: Acts as the owner of the assurance review, managing the Review Team through to the delivery of the review report to the SRO. The RTL is likely to lead the questioning.
Review Team Member (RTM) – Interviewer: There may be up to three RTMs on the review team. The RTMs are likely to ask questions about the programme/project to reflect their particular interest or expertise. They may also lead some interviews.
For more information or inquiries about this service, please contact the secretary to the review team: Martin Fenlon: fenlonm@parliament.uk