Business Continuity policy

A Business Continuity team has been established. The core team consists of CEO, Chairperson of the Board, Directors of Business Development, Finance & Operations, People and Programmes, and Public Policy. Others may be drafted temporarily into the team, depending on the nature of any crisis situation.

As a crisis emerges, The Wheel will follow the Business Continuity Management Steps.

1. Assemble the Business Continuity Team 
2. Ensure the safety and wellbeing of staff
3. Assess the crisis and understand the risks to the organisation, with reference to the Risk Register
4. Develop and implement a risk mitigation strategy, based on the Risk Register for relevant previously identified risks
5. Set up working teams within the executive and at board and sub-group level as required e.g. regular meetings of Senior Management Team, Finance and Audit sub-group, Board etc.
6. Identify a designated person to follow up on agreed actions to report back to any necessary team/overall business continuity team with actions/progress and updates.
7. As the crisis is mitigated with actions, comes to a natural conclusion or is merged into ongoing day-to-day operations, the business continuity team will cease to meet.

The following areas are likely to form part of any business continuity considerations:

1. Ability to continue to deliver Wheel services while unable to access the office – This was put through a rigorous test with the unexpected emergence of Covid-19 in March 2020 and our on-line cloud-based systems including SharePoint, Salesforce and Xero (accounting package), coupled with delivery of training and programme services via zoom indicates we are in a good position to continue to deliver operations while off-site.
2. Insurance cover – consideration of possible insurance cover in any crisis situation – we currently have general office insurance, employers, public, professional indemnity and legal liability cover; Directors and Officers; Cybersecurity and Travel insurance so these policies may well give cover or be referred to in any crisis situation.
3. Professional advice – we have a range of professionals who we consult for advice including auditors, legal advisers and other consultants who we can turn to for advice in a crisis situation.
4. Board and sub-groups – we have a wide range of experience and expertise in our board and non-board sub-group membership who should be consulted in a crisis situation. 
5. Cybersecurity – we have a number of mitigations in place to reduce the risk of interruption in a business continuity situation, including;  best-in-class, cloud-based systems with password protection and two-factor authentication, laptops encrypted with password protection and Bitlocker, regular monitoring by retained IT support, up to date firewall protections in place, two factor authentication in place for major software. 
6. Key-people – we have several mitigations in place to reduce the risk of business interruption due to departure of key members of staff. These include; documentation of organisational processes, regular review of remuneration and benefits to enhance retention, focus on distributed leadership to ensure sharing of priorities and organisational knowledge, line managers forum to ensure knowledge sharing to minimise impact of capacity gaps.