BS 25999 is a busi­ness con­tinu­ity man­age­ment stand­ard developed by BSI and is used by busi­nesses glob­ally. The Depart­ment of Home­land Secur­ity (DHS) has announced its intent to adopt BS 25999 (which comes in two parts) on a trial basis as one of three stand­ards for use in the Vol­un­tary Private Sector Pre­pared­ness Accred­it­a­tion and Cer­ti­fic­a­tion Program (PS-Prep). PS-Prep is dir­ec­ted by Title IX of the Imple­ment­ing the Recom­mend­a­tions of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion Act of 2007.

PS-Prep sets out to enhance nation­wide resi­li­ence by improv­ing private sector pre­pared­ness to estab­lish a common set of cri­teria for private sector pre­pared­ness, includ­ing dis­aster man­age­ment, emer­gency man­age­ment and busi­ness con­tinu­ity pro­grams. Cer­ti­fic­a­tion to BS 25999 US Edition will be used to confirm com­pli­ance with the vol­un­tary pre­pared­ness scheme.

Todd Vander­Ven, Pres­id­ent of BSI Americas,said:

“We are delighted to support the PS-Prep with the pro­vi­sion of BS 25999 US Edition. The stand­ard has been used suc­cess­fully by private busi­nesses around the world assist­ing organ­iz­a­tions of all types and size determ­ine and invest in crit­ical areas of the organ­iz­a­tion, protect repu­ta­tion and enhance stake­holder con­fid­ence. It will now play a key role for private sector organ­iz­a­tions in the USA wishing to demon­strate com­pli­ance with the vol­un­tary pre­pared­ness scheme.”

Every year thou­sands of busi­nesses face the risk of a dis­rup­tion to their busi­ness oper­a­tions, ranging from the effects of every­day dis­rup­tion such as power failure, to adverse weather con­di­tions to full scale ter­ror­ist attacks. Busi­ness inter­rup­tions can create a chain of ‘knock-on’ effects stretch­ing as far as dam­aging national and inter­na­tional infra­struc­ture. The need for good guid­ance in this field has never been stronger.

BS 25999 US Edition sets out the require­ments for estab­lish­ing and main­tain­ing an effect­ive BCM system, effect­ively enabling an organ­iz­a­tion to anti­cip­ate and prepare for dis­rup­tion. This might mean being able to rapidly recruit tem­por­ary staff or moving premises at very short notice: risks are dif­fer­ent for every organ­iz­a­tion but BS 25999 US Edition helps the organ­iz­a­tion to determ­ine what they are and make the neces­sary arrange­ments. Inde­pend­ent cer­ti­fic­a­tion to this stand­ard enables an organ­iz­a­tion to demon­strate to cus­tom­ers, stake­hold­ers and legis­lat­ors its pro­act­ive approach to achiev­ing best prac­tice in the area of BCM.

BS 25999 US Edition is ini­tially avail­able to private busi­nesses in the US for a one month period. At the end of this, all public com­ments on the stand­ard will be examined and the DHS will eval­u­ate the stand­ard for per­man­ent use in the program.

Selec­tion of the BSI Stand­ard does not imply DHS endorse­ment of BSI or any of its products or ser­vices other than the par­tic­u­lar stand­ard to be used for limited purposes.

For more inform­a­tion on BS 25999 US Edition,visit the BSI website.

www.bsiamerica.com