A “Policy Library” refers to a centrally maintained, library of the authorised versions of your business's policies.  

As with the Business’ operating environment, a Policy Library will necessarily be dynamic in nature and as policies are updated in response to new laws, market practices and business goals.  

A well-maintained Policy Library greatly contributes to a legal department’s, and if separate, a business’s compliance function’s optimised performance. 

This is one of the easiest CRE for a legal team to master, but some teams continue to suffer avoidable performance implications by failing to properly address this key aspect of contracting infrastructure.  

The exact format and design of your Policy Library will reflect our particular IT infrastructure and organisational structure. However, the basic infrastructure of the a Policy Library will always include: 

◼️ Centrally Located: your Policy Library should be centrally located and maintained, but readily accessible to all applicable personnel 

◼️ Up-to-date Policies: your Policy Library should have copies of the up-to-date, authorised versions of your corporate Policies 

◼️ Archive: you may wish to retain copies of old versions of your Policies, but these should be clearly labelled, and ideally separately located, to reduce the risk of personnel referring to the wrong version of a Policy  

◼️ Usage Rules: it must be very clear to all personnel exactly what policies apply in any given circumstance 

◼️ Access Rights: your library should have clearly defined access rights  

◼️ Editorial Rights: your library should have clearly defined rights and protocols for editing the library 

◼️ Maintenance Program: you should clearly define a program for when and how each of the policies in your library will be maintained 

◼️ Training: all personnel should be regularly trained on i) the individual policies, and ii) when and how to use the Policy Library 

The best practice features of the Policy Library are as follows:  

◼️ Single Source of Truth: the Policy Library must be the definitive location for policies within the business. Documents stored in any other location may be good copies, but they are not the “authorised policy”  

◼️ Centrally Maintained: the Policy Library should be centrally maintained but easily accessible to all applicable personnel  

◼️ Access: the Policy Library is and should remain a “restricted access” area i.e. everyone should be able to access it, but only key personnel allowed to edit any content stored therein. 

◼️ Development: the Policies should be continuously maintained and updated to reflect legal updates, user feedback, strategic direction etc  

A properly organised Policy Library delivers the following value to the Business:  

◼️ Risk Management: it enables improved and uniform risk management 

◼️ Board Duties: it helps the board discharge their duty to act in the best interests of the company 

◼️ Corporate Conduct: it drives improved corporate governance and compliance 

◼️ Contracting: it increases contract administration efficiencies 

◼️ Contracting: it enables you to preserve and leverage negotiated contractual positions 

◼️ Contracting: it shortens contract closure time frames  

◼️ Contracting: it helps to mitigate contractual dispute scenarios 

The Group Legal Policy is essential for: 

◼️ All Businesses: every business has policies and personnel that need access to the authorised versions of those policies 

◼️ Compliance Officers: the Policy Library is a key resource for all compliance team activities 

◼️ In-House Counsels: the Policy Library is a key resource for many legal team activities

A legal team operating without a well maintained Policy Library will face a wide range of inefficiencies including: 

◼️ Time Cost: the time cost of legal support for teams without a well maintained Policy Library grows  

◼️ Risk Costs: the cost associated with risks that “manifest” due to no/poor GLP can be extremely high 

◼️ Training & Development: an impaired ability to train in relation to required positions  

◼️ Reputation: in many ways, a business expresses its corporate identity to the world through its policies. So staff must be able to quickly and accurately access and utilise those policies when needed  

◼️ Compliance: compliance risk markedly increased when staff do not have a clear understanding and ability to access the right policies at the right time  

◼️ Housing: the Policy Library should be housed electronically and easily accessible by all stakeholders 

◼️ Contracting Tech Configuration: your legal tech applications will be configured by reference to your policies, and as such it is essential that those policies are accurately indexed and readily available