The need for small and medium enterprises to make provisions for disaster recovery and business continuity has been highlighted by recent disasters and incidents, the Federation of Small Businesses has said.

Spokesman Simon Briault named foot-and-mouth, bluetongue and the summer floods as events this year which have made businesses think more about how to deal with emergencies should they arise.

These may include ensuring the IT systems of a company are still running by measures such as having a remote system available and backing up data.

Mr Briault said: "There's more awareness now than ever before about the need to make sure that you've got continuity plans and that you can survive if there's a flood or a fire or whatever."

A telephone survey of company directors by Populus a year ago found that most businesses were underprepared for emergencies.

Nearly three-quarters had no plans for dealing with terrorist incidents, close to half had no plans for floods and about a third did not have measures to deal with the consequences of storms.

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