CEFAS24-107 Contract for exercises to test Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery

As part of business planning Cefas has the requirement to validate our business continuity, incident management, and recovery plans across our business. To ensure that these are current, accurate, effective, and complete, Cefas require the supplier to provide in the first year 3 quarterly virtual or on-site desktop exercises and an annual on-site live exercise.

At the end of the first year the requirements will be evaluated for consideration of continuing with 3 quarterly exercises and an annual live or changing to 2 annual exercises, it is envisioned that the time and resources for 3 quarterly exercises will be equal to an annual exercise, however the bidder will need to confirm this in the pricing schedule.

Requirement:

1. For year 1 to arrange, facilitate and manage quarterly desktop exercises and follow-up meetings/actions:

1.1. The quarterly desktop exercises will require the creation of a realistic scenario to be exercised in time jumps e.g. 1st hour real time, then 30 minute steps; 1st 30 min step jumps to 12hrs and 24hrs, 2nd 30 min step jumps to 24hrs. This will include the main Incident Management Team (IMT) or Disaster Recovery teams (DRT) (Gold, Silver and Bronze) or be focused on a single team (Gold, Silver or Bronze). The gold-silver-bronze command structure is a command hierarchy used for major operations by the emergency services of the United Kingdom. Some practitioners use the term strategic-tactical-operational command structure instead, but the different categories are equivalent.

1.2. The quarterly exercise must:

1.2.1. Include pre-exercise briefing

1.2.2. Validate the Incident Management structure in a response to an emergency

1.2.3. Enable the IMT or DRT, to practice their emergency response roles

1.2.4. Practice the functionality of the IMT or DRT in the event of a disaster

1.2.5. Provide an opportunity for the IMT or DRT to learn from the exercise and consider critical activities

1.2.6. Include feedback survey of those involved

1.3. At the end of year 1 for years 2 and 3 the exercise structure will be reviewed to determine if an extra annual exercise as per the requirements in section 2 below will be beneficial over 3 quarterly desktop exercises.