Governance

The Institute

Decision Standards Institute Ltd (ACN 699 264 376) is a public company limited by guarantee, registered in New South Wales, Australia. A company limited by guarantee has members, not shareholders, and no owners who take profits.

The Institute owns the DSI 001 standard and the related framework, indices and marks, and holds them for the purpose of maintaining the standard rather than for private gain.

What the Institute does

The Institute publishes and maintains the standard, hosts the framework, the crosswalks and the registers, and authorises assessors to operate under the DSI 001 scheme. It does not assess organisations or systems, and it does not prepare governance evidence.

Assessment is delivered independently by assessors authorised by Decision Standards Institute under the DSI 001 scheme; preparation is done by the organisation or a preparation tool. The separation of these three roles is set out in the impartiality and independence policy.

How the Institute is governed

The Institute is governed by its board, which is responsible for the integrity of the standard and the scheme.

The board is being reconstituted as an independent board. The founder continues as a director, and an independent chair and independent non-executive directors are being appointed to form an independent majority. Current vacancies are listed on the board vacancies page.

An independent impartiality function, with authority over conflict decisions, is being established. Its role is described in the impartiality and independence policy and will be set out here once it is operating.

Board skills matrix

The board maintains a skills matrix that sets out the mix of skills, experience and attributes it seeks, so that its composition matches the Institute's purpose. Independence is treated as a requirement rather than one skill among others: the chair and a clear majority of directors are independent of the entities that operate commercially within the DSI ecosystem and of the founder.

• Governance. Standards-body and certification-scheme governance, including impartiality and conflict regimes; prior board experience; risk and assurance oversight; and financial literacy with audit-committee capability.
• Industry. Conformity assessment, authorisation and standards development; AI and autonomous-systems governance and technology risk; and insurance and underwriting.
• Technical. Law, regulation and intellectual-property licensing; audit, accounting and financial assurance; and the commercialisation and adoption of assurance standards.
• Behavioural. Independence of mind, integrity and discretion, strategic judgement, and credibility with regulators, insurers and boards.

Independence from the commercial ecosystem

The standard sits outside the ownership of the entities that operate commercially under it. The assessor currently operating under DSI 001 is under common control with the operator of the Custara evidence product; that relationship is disclosed on every report and in the assessor directory. The Institute sits outside that ownership group.

How the standard is maintained

The current standard is DSI 001 Version 1.0, effective 25 June 2026. The Institute maintains the standard, controls its versioning, and records changes so that a result can always be read against the version of the standard in force when it was issued.

Governance enquiries: enquiries@decision-standards-institute.org.