What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 9.3.1 Management review: general?

A schedule of management reviews at planned intervals; Minutes showing top management attendance; A recorded conclusion on whether the ISMS is still suitable, adequate and effective; Evidence reviews happened as planned.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 9.3.1?

Reviews are held by the security team without top management

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · Clause 9

`9.3.1` Management review: general

Top management must review the organization's ISMS at planned intervals to make sure it remains suitable, adequate and effective.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, 9.3.1. 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/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

Minutes showing top management attendance · HR system / LMS
Evidence reviews happened as planned · Policy repository / GRC workspace

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

A schedule of management reviews at planned intervals · Policy repository / GRC workspace
A recorded conclusion on whether the ISMS is still suitable, adequate and effective · 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

Reviews are held by the security team without top management
Reviews are skipped or postponed indefinitely
No conclusion on ISMS suitability, adequacy and effectiveness is recorded
Planned intervals are not defined

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

9.2.2 Internal audit programme · 9.3.2 Management review inputs