The International Register of Certificated Auditors (IRCA) has issued a briefing note on the international standard on business continuity management systems, ahead of the publication of ISO 22301:2012, expected in May 2012.

The IRCA briefing note, intended for IRCA certificated auditors and IRCA approved training organizations, has been produced in recognition of the rapidly growing global interest in business continuity management systems.

ISO 22301 will be the first ‘new’ ISO management system standard to adopt a new high level structure and standardised text, which is currently under development as ISO Guide 83. It is expected that once published ISO Guide 83 will be used for all new and revised versions of existing ISO standards.

Peter Lomas, IRCA Technical Director, said:

“IRCA’s intention is to help training organizations and certified auditors familiarise themselves with the final draft version of ISO 23001 and to signal key changes in advance of the anticipated publication of the new standard in May 2012.

“The new ISO 22301:2012 will help simplify the approach to business management systems for those who have wanted to introduce more than one related standard and, until now, may have been faced with different terminology and requirements for, what are essentially, the fundamental elements of a management system.”

While there has been no change to the core elements of business continuity management as recognised by BCM practitioners and industry there are elements of ISO 22301 which have re-emphasised some of the fundamental aspects of BCM, such as the need for a proactive approach to planning. IRCA has identified the following key changes:

Top management leadership shall be more responsible for the management system
Preventative action has been replaced with “actions to address risks and opportunities” and feature at an earlier stage in the development of a management system
Greater specification and requirement for internal and external communications relevant to the management system
Strong emphasis on performance evaluation.
IRCA also recommends that, once published, readers of ISO 22301 should familiarise themselves with the vocabulary of ISO 22300 as new terminology has been introduced.