What does Directly Applicable, Indirectly Applicable or Information Only mean
Levels of Applicability for Legislation and other requirements
Within the ISO Compliance Register tool, you have the ability to categorise each items of legislation or compliance. These Categories will be useful as you can give your team a good level of information as to how crucial the compliance obligations are to their work.
The Categories you can select are:
- Directly Applicable
- Indirectly Applicable
- Information only
Directly Applicable: The Compliance Obligation affects your operations directly.
Example: Waste legislation that requires all organisation to maintain records of Waste Transfer Notes.
Indirectly Applicable: The Compliance Obligation affects your operations indirectly; e.g. the legislation may have a condition that you do not exceed, but need to keep a watch on.
Example: Packaging regulations that require organisations to register submissions if they exceed 25 tonnes of packaging placed on the market.
Information Only: The Compliance Obligation does not affect your organisation but it is useful to be aware of, as it may affect other organisation in your sector, or there is a perception that you should be aware of it.
Example: Greenhouse Gas legislation often affects how a Climate Change programme will operate at a national or Energy Sector level but rarely impacts an SME. However, it is useful to be aware of it as it could affect how you buy energy or what energy you are buying.
Applying the level of applicability
To change the level of applicability, you will need to click into the selected Register using the pencil icon (NB: Only Editors can do this).
Click the three dots in the ‘Action’ column of the relevant item that is in your Compliance Register. Select ‘Edit Requirement
In the applicability section, select the appropriate level for that item.
Once that is done, drop to the bottom of the page and select ‘Update Register Details’.
When you categorise a Compliance Obligation, this helps you build your Audit Programmes. If you categorise the Compliance Obligation as either Directly or Indirectly Applicable, then it will be added to an audit programme (see Audit section).
If you categorise the article as Information Only, then it will not be added to an audit programme. It is useful to maintain a watch on the item over time and if it becomes more significant to your organisation, then you may decide to change the categorisation and take more active management of it.
Notes: Some notes on User permissions:
Editors: Can select categorisations and will seen them in the ‘Edit Article Requirements’ panel
Users: Can select to see ‘Article Information’ and this will appear in the panel that pops up.