A new report published by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and Cabinet Office warns that many business leaders remain woefully under-prepared for disasters.

The Institute's ninth survey into business continuity management was conducted with 754 UK managers across all industries. The results show fewer than half (47 per cent) of all businesses have a business continuity plan in place.

The situation is worst in the IT sector – where it might be assumed that business leaders would have an appreciation of the need for continuity planning – where just 39 per cent had a business continuity plan.

“The ability to manage risk is a critical skill and unless it is taken seriously businesses and jobs will remain at risk,” said Jo Causon, director of marketing and corporate affairs at the Chartered Management Institute. “Some hard questions need to be asked about why the mismatch between planning and protection is allowed to exist.”

Of those with a plan in place, 33 per cent admitted to not testing the plan. This may give those organisations a false sense of security, the report notes: 78 per cent of organisations that do test their plans uncovered shortcomings.

The report suggests that organisations in the public sector and publically-listed companies are most likely to have a business continuity plan.

When respondents were asked what made them adopt a BCP, most said it had been corporate governance (63 per cent). Other major drivers were customer demands (58 per cent) and central government rules (13 per cent).