What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 5.3 Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities?

An organization chart or RACI for information security roles, approved by top management; Appointment of the person accountable for ISMS conformity and for reporting performance to top management; Job descriptions containing information security responsibilities; Performance reports delivered to top management by the assigned role.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 5.3?

No one is formally assigned to report ISMS performance to top management

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · Clause 5

`5.3` Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities

Top management must make sure that every role that matters for information security has its responsibilities and authorities assigned and made known internally, and must specifically assign responsibility and authority for making sure the ISMS conforms to this standard and for reporting ISMS performance to top management. A note allows responsibilities for internal performance reporting to be assigned as well.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, 5.3. 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/IEC 27001:2022 in the compliance library.

Clauses 4 to 10 are the management-system requirements: none of them can be excluded when an organisation claims conformity. The 93 Annex A controls are a reference set: one may be excluded with a justification in the Statement of Applicability. Certification bodies assess conformity; the evidence lists here are what auditors commonly ask for, not a list the standard prescribes.

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

An organization chart or RACI for information security roles, approved by top management · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Appointment of the person accountable for ISMS conformity and for reporting performance to top management · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Job descriptions containing information security responsibilities · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Performance reports delivered to top management by the assigned role · 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

No one is formally assigned to report ISMS performance to top management
Roles exist on paper but the holders are unaware of them
Authorities are not stated, only responsibilities
Role assignments are out of date after staff changes

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 Policy · 6.1.1 Actions to address risks and opportunities: general