We are confident that our Business Continuity Plans will enable us to maintain our high level of service quality for clients.
At this time it is natural for all businesses to look at their key supply chain and seek to ensure continuity of service. We have done this.
Devonshires is a multi-office operation with agile working built-in, so the service that we are already providing comes from offices and homes. If we have any disruption to our ability to work from any of our offices, perhaps due to a travel ban, we can continue from homes and you should not notice a different level of service. Given our main office is in Central London, we have had these contingency plans for years due to terror threats.
We have already built in a programme of deep office cleans, to help minimise the risk to our staff, and all offices and meeting rooms have hand sanitiser available.
We are also reviewing clients’ business disruption insurance policies and can assist with that if you wish.
Should you require more detail:
Devonshires maintains ISO 27001 Information Security accreditation as well as Lexcel accreditation (the Law Society’s legal practice quality mark). Both of those standards require us to have, and maintain, Business Continuity Plans (BCP) which are reviewed as part of each standard’s annual audit; we have successfully passed audits for both standards within the last six months.
Naturally, the risks and challenges that businesses face are constantly evolving and that is particularly the case with the current position regarding coronavirus/Covid 19. As such, we have been regularly reviewing the position to ensure that we have the ability to maintain operations in support of our clients; whilst also ensuring the wellbeing of our staff.
We are confident in our BCP and do not anticipate any issues in continuing to provide clients with our high-quality level of service
In particular, our planning contains the following:
- Provision for our staff to work in an agile manner – we support agile working via the provision of technology which enables our staff to work in any location. Indeed, many of our staff already work from multiple locations as part of their normal working pattern and we are continuing to implement tools and solutions that further assist this style of working
- Support for physical processes should travel, or other, limitations impact upon access to our primary site – we control access to our primary site and have multiple individuals capable of accessing/managing the site should any travel limitations occur. As a result of the options available to us we will be able to maintain access to required documents and files, as well as the ability to receive and send out documentation. In addition, we have specific processes in place to ensure that the progression or completion of matters should not be disrupted by access limitations
- Focus on maintaining good communication links with our clients – everyone will be impacted by the current concerns and it is imperative that clients know that they have access to the individuals who are looking after their matters. We are encouraging staff to ensure our clients have the contact details of the key individuals who are supporting their matters
- Assurance of our staff’s wellbeing – we are following Public Health England’s guidelines and helping our staff to remain informed about actions we are taking, as well as providing them with advice for their wellbeing.
We are, naturally, keeping our BCP under regular review and will adapt it as required. At all times we will be ensuring that we maintain our high level of service quality and ensure the wellbeing of our staff.
If you have any questions or would like to know more about our BCP, then please contact Duncan Edwards, our Chief Operations Officer at duncan.edwards@devonshires.co.uk.
