# Policy and Process Owner (PPO)

The Sted level for people who own policies and procedures: they edit and approve the documents they own, assign trainees and adopt standards.

Source: https://sted.digital/docs/glossary/policy-and-process-owner · Last reviewed 17 October 2026 · Strand Glossary

A Policy and Process Owner (PPO) is one of Sted's four levels, for the people who own your policies and procedures. A PPO edits and approves the documents an administrator has made them owner of, assigns their trainees and adopts standards, but does not invite people or see Plan and Users.

## Where the term appears

The level is Sted's. ISO management system standards ask top management to assign responsibilities and authorities for the roles that matter, and many organisations call the people who hold them process owners or policy owners. No standard defines a PPO. The [people and levels page](/docs/product/people-and-levels) sets out what each level may do.

### The level and the job should match

An auditor asks who owns a policy and who approved it, then checks the answer against the policy's own Responsibilities section and the approval record. If your Access Control Policy names the head of IT as owner, the head of IT should hold the level and own that document, not an administrator approving on their behalf. Give the level to managers who own a process, and keep administrators for running the organisation.

## How Sted uses it

People have one of four levels: Administrator, Policy and Process Owner, Reviewer, Personnel.
Only an administrator or the document's owner can edit a draft, and only administrators and Policy and Process Owners can own a document.
An administrator, or a Policy and Process Owner who owns the document, approves a Draft or starts a new version of an Approved one, and only an administrator assigns a document's owner; a document still awaiting review cannot be approved.
Reviewers and Personnel see only approved documents; a Policy and Process Owner sees drafts only of documents they own.
An administrator, or a Policy and Process Owner who owns the document, assigns and removes its trainees.
Administrators and Policy and Process Owners adopt or remove standards; everyone can see them.

## Related terms

- [Approved document](/docs/glossary/approved-document): what a PPO signs off.
- [Standard section](/docs/glossary/standard-section): the Responsibilities section names the owner.
- [Management review](/docs/glossary/management-review): where top management checks the owners' work.
- [Documented information](/docs/glossary/documented-information): the ISO term for what a PPO owns.