Governance maturity reporting

What the model asks

In line with clause 5 of ISO 37000, the governing body should give relevant stakeholders an honest and open account of its organizational governance framework, of the way it has put the key aspects of practice (and any other practices it uses to apply the principles) into effect, and of how it judges the outcomes reached. Where applicable, its reports and disclosures on maturity should cover the governance dimensions: how the conditions are embedded and how the principles are applied (a summary description of the practices), the maturity levels found in evaluation and why they are considered appropriate, targets for the short and long term and the areas of future focus, and what earlier improvement initiatives achieved together with the initiatives now given priority. The aim is to let stakeholders judge whether the governing body governs appropriately; showing a clear connection between maturity levels and governance outcomes is an essential goal.

What it means when one board controls another

Reporting is where the double accountability becomes public. The report should say what the group found, what each entity found where it differs, why the levels are appropriate, and what earlier initiatives achieved. A report that gives one group number and no entity view is the disclosure risk the draft warns about.

Evidence an evaluator asks for

A maturity rating is a claim about how the group governs. The evidence is what proves it operated. Keep both, and keep them together.

• Reporting: Governance maturity report or disclosure carrying the listed contents and linking maturity to outcomes

Where evaluations commonly find gaps

• Report stating levels with no rationale, targets or link to outcomes

How this requirement enters the rating

This unit belongs to the evaluation and improvement sequence. Record the decision it produces, the owner and the date, and keep it with the ratings it explains.

It carries 1 evidence item and 1 common gap in the model. One item is enough only if it is the artefact that proves the practice operated, not a policy that says it should. The group application on this page is ours; the requirement and evidence are the model's, stated in our own words.

Requirements that sit beside it

• 4.1 General: the purpose of evaluating governance maturity and its three aspects
• 4.2 Governance behaviour
• 4.3 Governance effectiveness

The three aspects The six-point scale All 35 requirements

Note on the draft: The requirement, evidence and gaps on this page are read from ISO 37004:2023, which the draft states it builds on. The draft's own clause body is not public, so this page does not state it. The clause reference at the top is the draft's public contents heading that this requirement sits under.