Business resilience in Derbyshire

On 12th March, our final business resilience workshop of the current series in the East Midlands was held in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, and hosted by Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce. The workshop was part of our Building Business Resilience project, funded by the Environment Agency.

As with all the workshops, businesses attended from a range of sectors, including distribution/ logistics, manufacturing, health and care, electrical wholesale, and food processing. The purpose of the workshop was to raise awareness of how weather patterns are likely to change due to climate change, to help businesses think about the impacts this will have on their operations and supply chains, and to explore action that business can take to make themselves more resilient. Each participant was given a copy of our Weathering the Storm guide, which includes useful sources of information and advice for businesses.

Liz Partington, Emergency Planning Manager at Derbyshire County Council, made the case for strengthening business resilience to severe weather: increased resilience will help a business to protect its reputation, increase stakeholder confidence, maintain service delivery, and potentially reduce insurance premiums. Liz highlighted the top risks identified in Derbyshire's Community Risk Register, which includes all types of severe weather and both river flooding and surface water flooding. She then talked through the kinds of questions businesses need to ask themselves, to help them anticipate potential disruptive events, and to understand which are their critical business functions and how long they could cope without them. She also outlined risk management strategies and recovery strategies. For more information, see Derbyshire Prepared, the Local Resilience Forum website.

Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce provided a case study of how their Chesterfield office has been affected by heavy snowfall, and how they coped with it. Scott Knowles, Deputy Chief Executive of the Chamber, came and talked to the workshop participants about the organisation's priority of maintaining its services to its members, and managing the operational impacts of severe weather.

The final presentation was from Zoe Wharmby from the Environment Agency, on flood risk mapping and flood warnings. Zoe described the different kinds of flooding, and the Environment Agency's roles and responsibilities in preparing for and responding to floods. On the Environment Agency website, business can find advice on how to prepare a flood plan for your business, find out whether you are located in a flood risk area, and sign up to receive Flood Warnings.

The workshop included plenty of time for discussion, and the businesses present gained valuable insights through sharing their experiences with each other. Key points raised during the discussion included:

• Businesses need to consider how they would cope if they experienced severe weather impacts out of hours, at the weekend, over Christmas or over bank holidays. For example, contacting alternative suppliers could be more challenging at these times.
• A related issue is that severe weather impacts may be affecting a large part of your locality. Therefore alternative suppliers may be inundated with requests for equipment such as heaters or pumps and unable to meet demand (assuming they are still trading and are not badly affected by the severe weather impacts themselves).
• Taking responsibility for your own resilience and making the most of the resources you've got: several companies said that they had invested in equipment to clear snow themselves, or they had adapted existing equipment for the task.
• Actively review and refresh business continuity plans and check emergency contacts are up to date.
• One plan can't cover everything. Managers need to be able to use their discretion.

On their evaluation forms, participants provided the following feedback:

How valuable was the worksop as a whole?

• "Very valuable"
• "Very good, thought provoking."
• "Added additional perspective to current continuity planning."

How will you act on what you have learnt?

• "Produce an action list and implement."
• "Report to senior management team."
• "Adding certain items to the business continuity plan."

Any comments on the organisation/ promotion of the event, the location, venue, format etc.?

• "Promotion was good, location was suitable and format was good as it kept the audience engaged."
• "Good venue, well presented."
• "Well delivered and lots of examples and illustrations."