Stakeholder Identification
Annex B is informative. It offers methods for physical attributes, impacted and influencing stakeholders, diversity, protected attributes and fairness definitions.
This annex is informative. It explains and illustrates; it does not create a requirement. A finding cannot rest on it alone. The normative clauses are 4 to 9.
What annex B asks
Annex B is an informative annex on stakeholder identification. It covers physical attributes, impacted stakeholders and their categories and attributes, a process to identify the attributes of impacted stakeholders, influencing stakeholders and how to identify, assess and measure their influence, the outcomes from influencing stakeholders, diversity, protected attributes and defining fairness. It supports the clause 6 actions but does not add a requirement.
Why it matters
The annex is the practical companion to clause 6. The clause says what must be identified; the annex suggests how to do it. Its treatment of influencing stakeholders is especially useful, because teams often identify the affected groups and forget the bodies that shape the system. Its discussion of fairness definitions is a warning that the word can mean different things, and the team has to choose and record a meaning.
What good looks like
Use Annex B as a menu, not a mandate. For each clause 6 action, record which annex method was used and why. Where the annex offers several fairness definitions, record the one the system's requirements use. Do not let the annex's examples become a closed list of stakeholder categories. Add the local groups the method reveals.
Evidence an assessor asks for
The assessor will ask why a particular fairness definition was chosen. The answer should refer to the system's requirements, not to the annex's first example.
- Method choice The annex method used for each clause 6 action, with the reason
- Fairness definition The definition the requirements use, and the alternatives considered
- Influencing stakeholder map The bodies that shape the system, with their influence
- Local group list The groups the method revealed beyond the annex examples
Where it commonly fails
- The annex examples are treated as the complete stakeholder list
- Fairness is left undefined
- Influencing stakeholders are omitted
What to do before publication
Choose the fairness definition in the clause 4 workshop, before the annex methods are applied.
Read across
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