6 Impact assessment

Once the IRT has been assembled at the command centre, a more detailed impact assessment must be carried out in order to decide the appropriate response.

The information that should have been recorded at the time of notification of the incident is as follows:

Date and time of the incident Nature of the incident e.g. fire, flood, explosion Location of the incident Whether emergency services have been called (if appropriate) and if so are they in attendance? Any injuries or loss of life if known An estimate of the scale of the impact

In addition to this initial indication, further information should be available from the Incident Liaison team member of the IRT who should be at the location of the incident.

Useful further information could include:

Likely duration of the incident Any obvious knock-on effects The extent of impact on infrastructure including computers, networks, equipment and accommodation The business units affected and the extent of the impact to them The effect on production or service delivery A list of those people that will not be able to assist in the recovery Initial indication of the likely cause of the incident

This information should be documented so that a clear time-based understanding of the situation as it emerges is available for current use and later review. A form template is provided for this purpose in the document Incident Impact Information Log.

A list of the business activities, products, services, teams and supporting processes that have been affected by the incident should be created together with an assessment of the extent of the impact. Template forms to record this information can be found in the BCMS documents Incident Impact Information Log and Plan Activation Log.