What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 5.2 Policy?

Current approved business continuity policy; Distribution and communication records; Evidence the policy is obtainable by interested parties where appropriate.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 5.2?

Policy approved once and left unreviewed through several reorganisations

ISO 22301:2019 · Leadership, ISO 22301:2019

`5.2` Policy

Maintain a business continuity policy that top management has set and that reaches the people inside the organization and the interested parties outside it who need to see it.

Source: ISO 22301:2019, 5.2. 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

Distribution and communication records · Policy repository / GRC workspace

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Current approved business continuity policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Evidence the policy is obtainable by interested parties where appropriate · 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 approved once and left unreviewed through several reorganisations
Policy published on an intranet nobody is directed to
No decision recorded about which interested parties should receive it

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

5.1 Leadership and commitment · 5.2.1 Establishing the business continuity policy