What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 9.2.1 General?

Audit schedule with planned intervals and evidence of adherence; Audit reports addressing conformity to internal requirements, to the standard, and to effective implementation; Coverage map showing the whole BCMS is audited across a cycle.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 9.2.1?

Audits test conformity to the standard only and never to the organization's own BCMS requirements

ISO 22301:2019 · Performance evaluation, ISO 22301:2019

`9.2.1` General

Hold internal audits at planned intervals to find out whether the BCMS satisfies both the standard and what the organization itself requires of its BCMS, and whether it is put into practice and kept up effectively.

Source: ISO 22301:2019, 9.2.1. 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

none for this control

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Audit schedule with planned intervals and evidence of adherence · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Audit reports addressing conformity to internal requirements, to the standard, and to effective implementation · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Coverage map showing the whole BCMS is audited across a cycle · 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

Audits test conformity to the standard only and never to the organization's own BCMS requirements
Effectiveness untested, with audit limited to documentation existence
Coverage concentrated on easy areas, leaving parts of the BCMS unaudited for years

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

9.2 Internal audit · 9.2.2 Audit programme(s)