Hi Luke
What did you want to know..... its a big subject!
BC grew out of H&S and risk management. It gets 'status' in the board room due to Enron and other corporate gaffs where public investors have lost a lot due to lack of preparedness for 'corporate folley/risk'.
Turnbull, Cadbury and others reported to UK gov and the Civil Contingencies Act now requires local councils to have;
a. Emergency Plans in place to deal with civil emergencies (very topical with the current flooding issue)and
b. BC plans to ensure they can cope with (a above ) plus other types of risk (including political scandal, financial loss, computer and information loss etc).
Large business have now recognised that BC is a valuable business tool and some, in addition to the public sector, are legally required to have in place (eg finance sector).
It is important to distinguish between EP and BC, but Phil is correct in saying there is plenty of information out there. Try looking in the IOSH resources section for Business Risk Management and also have a look at
http://www.thebci.org/ and here
http://www.continuitycentral.com/ for resources. IOSH also run a Professional Development Course on the topic.
To me it is a progression of what we hold dear and are very well equiped to lend our experience and undertake as part of a corporate team of risk assessors.
Other terms such as; Business Impact Analysis, Disaster Recovery, Critical Function, Max loss, Max tolerable period of disruption bubble from the cauldren occasionally but if you keep your head these all make sense when in context with risk measurement, risk interpretation and risk control.
As far as a BC plan goes think of the clothing around the HSG 65 model but put on a bow tie not a Simpsons special! It needs to be at a much higher strategic level though, the standard is BS 25999.
Hope this helps.
Stingray Steve
(for those that don't know try here
and for those that do remember - enjoy)