Continuity of Operations Plans

Published July 7, 2023

The focus of the audit was to provide an initial assessment of the County’ s continuity of operations ( COOP) plans to meet acceptable levels of service delivery and essential functions following a disruption when compared to industry best practices.

What was found:

The assessment score of 4.9 out of ten indicates moderate progress towards creating a comprehensive continuity of operations plan. The County has taken significant steps to establish continuity of operations plans, identify essential functions, and consider critical operational capacities. Planning efforts were hindered because of the use of the State-contracted software system to guide individual office/ department continuity of operations plan development. The system contained conflicting directions and limited user options, so several aspects of planning were absent or insufficiently developed. The State is currently transitioning to a new software system provider, but the details of the system capabilities are unknown.

During the COVID - 19 pandemic and its subsequent disruptions the County successfully applied some planned continuity of operations plan strategies, such as remote work, yielding a more agile work environment. However, County continuity of operations plans were not formally activated as guidance to navigate the pandemic largely due to the absence of pandemics in the activation scenarios and lack of overall staff awareness.

Continuous improvement of the County’ s continuity of operations plans was hampered by the pandemic as it impacted regular evaluations and planned exercises. Assessments found a consistent need for additional continuity of operations plan training to effectively increase staff awareness and understanding of the plans.

What was recommended:

We recommended:

• Determining whether the new continuity of operations plan software system will meet the requirements of the County or consider alternatives
• Directing staff to complete continuity of operations planning areas not captured in the current continuity of operations plan software system
• Re-establishing regular continuity of operations planning meetings
• Expanding activation scenarios
• Establishing a continuity of operations plan training program and conducting regular continuity of operations plan exercises.