Management Review Record Template

What requires or shapes this record

No source opened for this page uses the exact name "management review record", and none sets a form for one, so the name, the input list and the section titles are ours. The sources do show what a review is for and what it looks at. The ILO's voluntary guidelines have a section called management review that says what a review evaluates, what it should consider and that its findings are recorded and formally communicated. HSE's guide to managing health and safety in Great Britain describes reviewing performance as the step that closes the loop, and does not use the words "management review". US EPA lists a management review for an environmental management system, with six topics at a minimum and documented notes. In Great Britain, regulation 5 of the 1999 management regulations asks employers to make and give effect to arrangements for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of preventive and protective measures, and says nothing about a meeting or a record of one. Management system standards, including ISO standards, ask for management reviews in their own words; those standards are paid, their text was not read for this page and is not reproduced, and this form does not claim to follow any of them. Which inputs a review must cover depends on the standard or rule you follow. This page is general information, not legal advice.

• ILO, Guidelines on occupational safety and health management systems, ILO-OSH 2001 (second edition 2009), sections 3.11, 3.12 and 3.14 (free PDF, opened 19 October 2026)

  The guidelines say they are not legally binding and are not intended to replace national laws, regulations or accepted standards, and that their application does not require certification. The section titled Management review (3.14, not 3.13, which is Audit) says a review should evaluate whether the system meets planned performance objectives, whether it can meet the needs of the organisation and its stakeholders including workers and the regulatory authorities, the need for changes including to policy and objectives, what action is needed to remedy deficiencies in good time, progress towards objectives and corrective actions, and the effectiveness of follow-up actions from earlier reviews. The frequency and scope are defined by the employer or the most senior accountable person according to the organisation's needs. A review should consider the results of investigations of injuries, ill health and incidents, performance monitoring and measurement, and audit activities, and additional internal and external inputs and changes, including organisational changes. Its findings should be recorded and formally communicated to the persons responsible for the relevant elements and to the safety and health committee, workers and their representatives. Sections 3.11 and 3.12 say that performance measures should support the management review and that investigation results should be included in it. The form's sections 3, 5, 7, 8 and 9 follow this pattern in our own wording. Only short facts are paraphrased.

• HSE, Managing for health and safety (HSG65, third edition 2013, free web version), the Act stage: reviewing performance and learning lessons (opened 19 October 2026)

  HSE's guidance for Great Britain describes a Plan, Do, Check, Act approach, replacing its earlier model with the stages policy, organising, planning, measuring performance, auditing and review. It says reviewing performance establishes whether leadership and management, competence and worker consultation and involvement have been embedded, and whether the system manages risk, and that revisiting plans, policy documents and risk assessments to see if they need updating belongs to it. It says the most important aspect of reviewing is that it closes the loop: the outcomes become what you plan to do next. For leaders it says to make sure the review is carried out according to plan and that a report goes to senior leaders at least annually. For managers it lists review objectives and types of information to collect, among them active and reactive monitoring, accident, incident and near-miss data, training records, inspection and investigation reports, risk assessments, new guidance and issues raised by workers or their representatives. It says the frequency depends on your risk profile, that someone independent could add value, that suppliers and contractors should be considered, that findings should be reported to everyone in the organisation and that remedial actions should be checked to see that the measures work. The guide is guidance, not law, and the words "management review" do not appear in it. That is why the form has an overall view, actions with a check that they worked and a section on who is told.

• US EPA, Environmental Management Systems: Act, Fixing and Improving an EMS, Step 26 Conduct Management Review (page last updated 13 March 2026, opened 19 October 2026)

  EPA says the EMS team should create a summary of the organisation's EMS performance and present it to top management, so that top management can draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the system, examine opportunities for improvement and decide whether the system needs to change to match the organisation's strategic direction. At a minimum it lists six topics: internal audit results, status of environmental objectives, adequacy of resources, opportunities for continual improvement, changes in significant environmental aspects and status of corrective actions. It says organisations should document management reviews, distribute the meeting notes to the EMS team and send the resulting action items to the responsible parties. The neighbouring step asks whether an unmet objective should still be pursued, why it was not met and what must change. This is EPA's own guidance page for environmental management systems and not a rule. The form borrows its pattern of input, conclusion and action items, and its input list adds the other topics of the sources on this page.

• Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (SI 1999/3242), regulation 5, Health and safety arrangements (Great Britain; legislation.gov.uk, opened 19 October 2026)

  Regulation 5(1) says every employer shall make and give effect to such arrangements as are appropriate, having regard to the nature of the activities and the size of the undertaking, for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of the preventive and protective measures. Regulation 5(2) says an employer with five or more employees shall record the arrangements. The page marks the regulation as extending to England, Wales and Scotland. It does not mention a management review meeting, a record of one or a list of inputs, and it speaks of reviewing the preventive and protective measures, not the management system as such. It is the one law opened for this page that touches the idea, and a completed record does not show that you meet it. Other countries have other rules. The regulation's own text is not reproduced beyond these short phrases.

Each source checked on 19 October 2026. Not legal advice; check the text in force for your site.

Field by field

Fill in one record for each review meeting, and keep the same list of inputs in the same order from one review to the next so that results can be compared. The inputs are an example list of ours, based on the sources above: replace them with the ones in your own procedure, and add those that a standard or rule you follow asks for. Send the inputs to the people who will attend before the meeting. Write facts and figures with their dates, and say who decided, because a record that only lists topics cannot show what the decision rested on.

Management system or systems covered

Why: A review covers one system or a combined one. Say which, and which sites or units are in scope, so that the record is not read as covering more than it did. The title, reference and revision of the record let it be found and controlled like any other record.

Common mistake: A record titled "management review" that does not say whether it covered quality only or all systems, so a missing safety input looks like a gap in the system.

Date of the meeting

Why: Shows when the inputs were reviewed and, with the venue and the type of meeting (planned or extra), whether this was the scheduled review. HSG65 says the frequency depends on your risk profile, and ILO-OSH leaves the frequency to the employer or the most senior accountable person.

Common mistake: Dating the record on the day the minutes were typed up, not the day the meeting was held.

Period reviewed (from to)

Why: Inputs are only comparable if they cover a stated period. The date of the previous review is on the same row so that the follow-up of its actions can be checked, which ILO-OSH names as part of a review.

Common mistake: Reviewing a rolling twelve months in one input and the calendar year in another, so figures cannot be put side by side.

Chair (name, role)

Why: Names who ran the meeting, who took the minutes and who set the agenda and sent the inputs. HSG65 says leaders should make sure the review is carried out according to plan; someone has to own the plan.

Common mistake: No owner for the agenda, so the inputs arrive late or are collected during the meeting.

Attendees and apologies

Why: Shows who decided and who was missing. EPA's page describes the summary as presented to top management, and ILO-OSH places the review with the employer or most senior accountable person, so the form asks which attendees are top management and whether a worker representative or committee was invited, as ILO-OSH has the findings go to them.

Common mistake: A list of names with no sign of whether anyone with authority over policy, objectives and resources was present.

Inputs reviewed

Why: One row per input, with a summary of what was presented and whether it raised an issue to decide. The eight examples draw on ILO-OSH (investigations, performance measures, audit, changes, internal and external inputs), HSG65 (inspection reports, risk assessments, new guidance, issues raised by workers) and EPA (audit results, objectives, resources, corrective actions). The list is ours, so use the one your procedure sets.

Common mistake: A summary such as "KPIs reviewed, fine" with no figures, so nobody can later tell what the meeting saw.

Source of the data (report, date)

Why: Ties each summary to a report and its date, and says who presented it. A figure with a source can be checked, and an input that is corrected after the meeting can be matched to the version the meeting saw.

Common mistake: Quoting a number from memory or from a slide, with no report named, then finding a different number in the system a month later.

Discussion points

Why: Records what was discussed against which input, including views that differed and the evidence used. A decision is easier to review later when the options that were considered, and the objections, are on the page.

Common mistake: Minuting only the conclusions, so a dissenting view or a worker representative's point is lost.

Decisions

Why: Each decision is a separate line with its own number, so an action can point to it. A decision not to act is a decision too and is recorded with its reason.

Common mistake: Writing "discussed" for an item on which the meeting actually decided something.

Reason for the decision

Why: The reason is what a later reviewer, auditor or successor needs: what evidence, which objective, which risk. Without it the decision cannot be tested against what was known at the time.

Common mistake: Leaving the reason blank because it seemed obvious in the room.

Actions

Why: Each action has one named owner, a due date and the decision it comes from. A column records who checked that it worked and when: HSG65 says remedial actions should be checked so that the measures work, and ILO-OSH names the effectiveness of follow-up actions as a thing to evaluate at the next review.

Common mistake: Closing an action when the task is done, with no check that the problem it was meant to solve has gone.

Overall view of how well the system is working

Why: ILO-OSH has a review evaluate whether the system meets planned performance objectives and the needs of the organisation and its stakeholders, and EPA has top management draw conclusions about effectiveness. The four options and the reasons line are our own wording of a conclusion the meeting should reach in plain terms.

Common mistake: Concluding "working as planned" from an input that shows no data, when the right answer is "cannot tell from the inputs".

Changes needed

Why: A review is where the need for changes to policy, objectives or the system is decided (ILO-OSH names this). The ticks make "no change" a recorded answer, and the lines say what changes, who makes the change and by when, through your document control procedure.

Common mistake: Deciding to change the policy in the meeting and never issuing a new revision.

Resources decided

Why: EPA lists the adequacy of resources among the topics at a minimum. Decisions on people, budget, equipment, training or time are recorded with who approved them, from when they are available and the decision they follow, so a later review can ask whether they arrived.

Common mistake: Agreeing in the meeting to "find budget" with no amount, approver or date.

Findings sent to

Why: ILO-OSH says the findings are recorded and formally communicated to the persons responsible for each element, and to the safety and health committee, workers and their representatives; HSG65 says to report review findings to everyone in the organisation. The line records who, how and when, and what came back.

Common mistake: Filing the minutes on a shared drive and treating that as telling the people who must act on them.

Date of next review

Why: Fixes the next date, the planned frequency and what would trigger an extra review (a serious incident, a change of site or a new legal requirement), and says where this record is kept and for how long. How long to keep it depends on your procedure, contract and the rules that apply to you.

Common mistake: A next review date that is simply twelve months on, with no trigger for an earlier one.

Sign-off by top management

Why: Signatures show who accepted the record as an accurate account, and who was top management for the meeting. They do not show that the system meets a legal requirement or a standard.

Common mistake: Having the minute taker sign for everyone, so no member of top management has seen the record.

Worked example

IllustrativeA management review record for an invented company: a small metal fabrication firm reviewing quality and safety together (invented company, people, figures and references)

The record shows what the meeting saw, decided and assigned. It does not show that the system meets a standard or a rule, and an input of 91% against a target of 95% says nothing about why it fell. The names, figures and dates are invented to show the method and are not benchmarks or recommendations: your inputs, targets and decisions come from your own system and the rules that apply to you.

When a spreadsheet stops being enough

A word-processor file and a shared folder work for one review a year, at one site, with one person who writes the minutes. They stop working when several systems or sites feed one review, when inputs come from different owners and arrive late or are corrected after the meeting, when actions from many reviews must be followed to completion and checked for effect, and when you need to show what was in front of the meeting on the day a decision was made.

A software record keeps each review as a dated record linked to the previous one, holds the inputs as they stood on the day with their sources and who presented them, links decisions to actions with an owner, a due date and a check that the action worked, and keeps a visible history when a figure is corrected later. Ask what happens when an input is corrected after the meeting and whether the earlier version stays visible. The list below applies the sourced management-review capability rule used by the management review software guide. Nothing in it shows that a product keeps the inputs of your own procedure, so ask to load your own input list and one past record in a demonstration.

Same rule for every product: tagged “Quality Management”, “ISO Management”, “Audit Management”, “Compliance Management” or “EHS Management”, with a sourced management review or review meeting capability in its record, or one the vendor stated to us, labelled as vendor-stated. Documented and conditional capabilities qualify; check the linked scope before treating a module as included.

Tekmon pays for a sponsored placement (above); its place in this list follows the same rule as every entry. How lists are ordered

• Effivity · Management review records and follow-up · Documented

  Product scope and boundaries

  Vendor source · Profile checked 14 October 2026

• Tekmon · Management Review (vendor-stated) · Vendor-stated, not yet publicly confirmed

  Product scope and boundaries

  Ask to see it in a demo · Profile checked 28 September 2026

• Q-Hub · Risk assessment, safety observations and forms · Conditional

  Product scope and boundaries

  Vendor source · Profile checked 14 October 2026

All 3 matching profiles are shown. Documentation review, not hands-on testing or a claim of compliance.