What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 5.2.2 Communicating the business continuity policy?

Controlled copy of the policy with version and date; Records of communication to staff, including new starters; Evidence of external availability where appropriate, and the decision on which parties get it.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 5.2.2?

Policy communicated at launch and never to anyone hired since

ISO 22301:2019 · Leadership, ISO 22301:2019

`5.2.2` Communicating the business continuity policy

Hold the business continuity policy as documented information, communicate it within the organization, and make it available to interested parties where that is appropriate.

Source: ISO 22301:2019, 5.2.2. The statement above is our statement of the clause, read from the published text and cited so you can check it against the official text, not the instrument verbatim. Open ISO 22301:2019 in the compliance library.

artefacts

held by a system

at each review

hard

to go live

Policy repository / GRC workspace

where the evidence lives

teal = a system already holds it · olive = produced at each review. To go live: easy when half or more of the artefacts are already held by a system, moderate from a quarter to a half, hard below a quarter.

These are the artefacts auditors commonly ask for on this requirement, our guidance rather than text from the standard. Your assessor decides what is sufficient in your context, and asks for samples across the period when a report covers one.

system holds itEvidence a system already holds

none for this control

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Records of communication to staff, including new starters · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Evidence of external availability where appropriate, and the decision on which parties get it · Policy repository / GRC workspace

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Controlled copy of the policy with version and date · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

No system holds this evidence for you: it is people and documents. Reminders and routing to the owner still save time. Put the document under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a record with reviewer and date.

Common gaps auditors find

Policy communicated at launch and never to anyone hired since
External availability neither provided nor consciously declined
Uncontrolled copies in circulation alongside the current one

Do this for your whole sheet

Paste the rows you run your controls from and get this mapping for every control at once, with the periodic-review ones flagged and a first move per row. No account for the first run.

Build my evidence sheet

5.2.1 Establishing the business continuity policy · 5.3 Roles, responsibilities and authorities