Context and interested parties

Clauses 4.1 and 4.2 ask you to know your context: the issues inside and outside the organisation that affect what you want to achieve, and the interested parties with their needs and expectations. Under Context you keep both as two simple lists.

For an issue you record whether it is internal or external, a category such as climate, the market, laws or technology, a short description and its effect on the organisation. You can link it to a risk, so the issue and the way you handle it stay together.

For an interested party, such as customers, staff, neighbours or the authorities, you record what they need and expect, whether that becomes a requirement of your management system, how you deal with it and which standards it matters for.

Each entry has a review date a year ahead. When you have looked at it again, choose Mark reviewed and the next review moves a year on. Entries past their review date show under Needs attention on the dashboard. Clauses 4.1 and 4.2 link straight to the lists and show how many entries they hold.