Methodology
The observatory measures what each municipality and province makes publicly verifiable about its emergency preparedness and the continuity of its services. Here is how.
Three statuses per criterion
- Public evidence found100 %
A document or page of the authority makes the item verifiable (downloadable plan, detailed page, BE-Alert sign-up…). The source and consultation date are shown.
- Mentioned without evidence40 %
The website mentions the topic, without a document or verifiable detail.
- No public information found0 %
No public information was found. This does not mean the item does not exist.
Criteria and weights
| Criterion | Block | Points |
|---|---|---|
| General emergency and intervention plan (PGUI/ANIP)dated | Emergency planning | 20 |
| Special emergency plans per risk (PPUI/BNIP)dated | Emergency planning | 10 |
| Emergency planning exercisesdated | Emergency planning | 10 |
| Public alerting (BE-Alert) | Emergency planning | 15 |
| Public information on risks and what to do | Emergency planning | 10 |
| Safety cell and emergency planning coordinator | Emergency planning | 10 |
| Business continuity plan for public services | Service continuity and cyber | 8 |
| IT disaster recovery plan | Service continuity and cyber | 5 |
| Cyber incident response | Service continuity and cyber | 5 |
| Internal and external crisis communication | Service continuity and cyber | 4 |
| Public NIS2, CyFun, ISO 27001 or ISO 22301 approach | Service continuity and cyber | 3 |
How recent documents are
For the PGUI, the special plans and exercises, a proof counts in full if its document is less than 3 years old, 80% between 3 and 6 years, 60% beyond. A proof whose date could not be validated counts 80%. Only dates checked by a reviewer are used.
Collection, pre-classification, validation
An identified crawler (ResiPlanObservatoryBot) reads the official websites, respects robots.txt and the delay each website asks for, and never sends more than one request every two seconds to the same server. It keeps pages and PDFs containing French or Dutch keywords and masks e-mail addresses and phone numbers. An AI then suggests a status for each document. A reviewer checks every source and decides; no page is published without that validation.
Limits
The score measures transparency, not the quality or existence of plans: a careful municipality may rightly not publish its IT disaster recovery plan. A website a crawler struggles to read can hide information; the page is then only published once a reviewer could conclude. Authorities can complete their page through the right of reply.
Independence
The observatory is published by Résiplan, which sells continuity software. Being a Résiplan customer never changes a score or a page, and the page is free for every municipality. The criteria and method are public and versioned.
NIS2
Belgian local authorities are not automatically within the scope of the NIS2 law: the observatory never describes a municipality as an entity subject to it. The 'NIS2, CyFun, ISO 27001 or ISO 22301 approach' criterion only records a public approach.
Updates
Websites are read again every quarter. Each publication creates a new version of the page; the score history stays visible.
Methodology 2026.1