Standard section
A standard section is one of the opening and closing sections a Sted policy or procedure keeps whatever you adopt, such as Policy Statement, Scope, Responsibilities and Enforcement. The review of a new draft skips them and adopts them when you finish, and in edit mode you can reword them but not drop them.
Where the term appears
The phrase is Sted’s own. “Standard” here means the usual parts of a policy, not a section some standard requires. The standards do not list policy headings, but auditors look for the same things in every policy: a statement of intent, what and whom it covers, who is responsible, how people learn about it, how it is checked, and what happens when it is broken. Sted’s standard sections cover those parts. The reviewing a draft page lists all eight.
Standard is not the same as unimportant
Auditors read these sections closely. Responsibilities names who owns the policy and who must follow it, and Enforcement says what happens when someone does not. Reword them to match how your organisation really works: a generic Responsibilities section that names roles you do not have is a finding waiting to happen.
How Sted uses it
- Sted marks up to eight sections of a policy or procedure as standard (Policy Statement, Scope, References, Responsibilities, Information Classification, Training and Awareness, Monitoring, Audit, and Review, and Enforcement), and until the review finishes each reads “Standard section, adopted when the review finishes”.
- You review a new draft section by section, ticking the requirements you adopt; standard sections are adopted for you.
- In edit mode you can add your own requirements and sections and drop recommended sections; standard sections cannot be dropped.
Related terms
- Approved document: the version the standard sections end up in.
- Documented information: the ISO term for the policies these sections belong to.
- Policy and Process Owner (PPO): the level that usually owns and rewords them.
- Record template: the record-side counterpart, with sections of its own.