Incidents
A resilience incident is any event at a physical site of the Velocity Interoperability Network in which one of the four standards set out under Sites is called upon or fails: a loss of mains power, a loss of cooling, flooding, or fire. Member organisations report incidents to the Environment Department of the Velocity Interoperability Network so that the Department can judge whether the standards are working, bring forward the assessment of a site where they are not, and share what is learned with the rest of the Network.
Incidents are placed in one of three classes according to their effect on service, with a separate category for near misses. The class determines how quickly the Department must be notified and whether a follow-up report is required. The class is assigned by the organisation when it makes the initial notification and may be revised by the Department once the facts are known.
Reporting an incident is separate from the quarterly energy report under How to report, although fuel burned during an incident is also counted there. A site whose monitoring station records unplanned generator running will be asked whether an incident has occurred if none has been reported.
Classes of incident
| Class | Definition | Notify the Department | Follow-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Loss of Network service at a site for more than four hours; fire or flood water reaching an equipment room; or evacuation of a staffed site | Within 1 hour of detection | Full report within 10 working days |
| Class 2 | Loss of a mains supply or a cooling unit with service maintained on standby for more than four hours; a standby generator failing to start on demand | Within 24 hours | Report within 20 working days |
| Class 3 | An unplanned start of the standby supply with service unaffected; a temperature, humidity or leak alarm corrected within four hours | With the next quarterly report | None unless requested |
| Near miss | Any event that would have been a Class 1 or Class 2 incident but for intervention or chance | Within 5 working days | None unless requested |
Reporting an incident. The steps below apply to incidents of every class. Notifications and reports are sent to contact@environment.gov.vin with the site code in the subject line.
Step 1: Make the site safe
Follow the site's own emergency procedures first. Where there is fire, flooding or a danger to people, the site's emergency point and the emergency services take precedence over any report to the Department.
Step 2: Notify the Department
Send an initial notification by email quoting the site code from the register, the class of incident, the time of detection, the standard affected and the present state of service. The notification need not be complete; a short message within the deadline is preferred to a full one after it.
Step 3: Preserve the record
Keep the building management, alarm and generator logs covering the period from six hours before detection until service is fully restored. The Department may ask for them in support of the follow-up report.
Step 4: Restore service and record the recovery
Record the time at which each affected standard was restored, the equipment repaired or replaced, and the fuel or refrigerant consumed. These figures also belong in the site's next quarterly energy report.
Step 5: Submit the follow-up report
For Class 1 and Class 2 incidents, send a report describing the cause, the sequence of events, the effect on service, the recovery and the actions the organisation proposes to prevent a recurrence.
Step 6: Complete the actions and confirm
Carry out the agreed actions by the dates set and confirm completion to the Department. Where an action changes the site's equipment or supplies, amend the register entry at the same time.
What happens after a report is received
- Review of the follow-up report
- The Department reviews every Class 1 and Class 2 report within 20 working days of receipt. It may ask for more information, ask to inspect the site, or accept the report and the proposed actions as they stand.
- Reassessment of the site
- A Class 1 incident brings forward the site's next assessment against the resilience standards to the quarter following the incident. A Class 2 incident brings it forward where the same standard has been affected twice in twelve months.
- Lessons shared across the Network
- Where an incident reveals a weakness likely to exist at other sites, the Department issues a notice to all member organisations describing the weakness and the remedy. The notice does not identify the site or the organisation.
- Aggregate publication
- The number of incidents in each class, by class of site, is published with the Department's quarterly aggregate figures. Individual incidents are not published.
The register entry of a site affected by an incident is described under Register of sites. Answers to common questions about incidents, including what to do when the class is uncertain, are in the frequently asked questions.
Flood and the standards
The flood standard requires equipment rooms to be sited above the level of the highest recorded flood at the site, or protected by barriers rated to that level, and a documented plan for orderly shutdown if flooding is forecast. Flood water reaching an equipment room is a Class 1 incident whatever the effect on service.
Two of the Network's transmission sites lie on low ground and are fitted with flood level sensors reporting to the monitoring network.
