Purpose

Major incidents can disrupt the College’s services, affecting operations, employees, members, stakeholders, communities and the environment. The College is responsible to plan for the preservation and rebuilding of its critical activities and essential functions used to provide regulatory services for the nursing profession in Alberta. To minimize the impact of disruptions to such activities, the Business Recovery and Continuity Policy has been established to:

• Define structure and authority to ensure business resilient services.
• Organize efforts to manage through a disruption when the need arises.
• Quickly and safely resume operations after a disruption.

The policy provides a clear commitment to establishing a Business Continuity Management (BCM) Program within the College that will enable the organization to:

• Act as a socially responsible employer by taking reasonable precautions to protect employees, members, assets, and the environment.
• Continue to deliver a minimum, acceptable level of services in the event of a disruptive incident, prior to establishing a ‘business-as-usual’ situation.
• Achieve a business continuity capability which can provide an effective response to major disruptions and that meets the changing situational reality.
• Establish a clearly defined framework for the ongoing Business Continuity Management Program capability.

Principles

The College will:

• Continue operations without unduly putting at risk people and the environment.

• Improve the resilience of the organization’s infrastructure.

• Reduce the operational and financial impact of any disruption.

• Continue to provide key services to the College’s stakeholders in times of disruption.

• Make the best use of personnel and other resources in times when both might be scarce.

• Manage disruptive incidents according to the College’s policies, guidelines and templates.

• Manage disruptive incidents locally in the organization whenever reasonably possible.

Procedures

The College will take an enterprise risk management approach to business recovery and continuity. This includes:

• Risk mitigation – the College will work to reduce risk through BCM preparedness, analysis of risks, developing incident scenarios and business impact analysis.
• Business Continuity Management (BCM) Program - the College will establish plans and procedures to enable it to respond, recover/resume and restore services following a critical incident. This will include:
  • Emergency Response Plan (ERP) to address the College’s immediate actions.
  • Crisis Management Plan (CMP) and Crisis Communications Plan (CCP) to outline the College’s management and communications procedures/protocols during the response, recovery and resumption phases of a critical incident.
  • Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) to support the College’s activities during the recovery phase and during the restoration phase of a critical incident.
• Preparedness - As part of its planning for critical incident response and the restoration of services, the College will build awareness of the potential for critical incidents, provide training and conduct emergency response drills for employees, key volunteers and Council members. 

Assurance

To ensure the College’s Business Continuity Management (BCM) Program remains effective and that all critical business activities are covered and compliant with relevant rules and regulations, the BCM Program will be reviewed annually and the findings reported by management to Council. Business Continuity Management will be an iterative process with risks and their potential impacts updated regularly and plans developed for further improvement to the College’s response. Plans will be approved by senior management and reported to Council (at least annually).

Responsibilities

The CEO & Registrar is responsible to ensure that the Business Recovery and Continuity Policy is implemented and updated as needed.

Definitions

For purposes of this policy, the following definitions apply: