What scope states
Scope answers four questions: which places (sites, buildings, construction sites), which activities, which products and services, and which people (own workers, contractors, visitors).
What it is derived from
Scope follows from the organisation's context (clause 4.1) and the needs of interested parties (4.2). First you ask what you operate in and who has an interest, then you draw the line. Reversing the order means drawing the line first and bending the context to fit it — shaping the system around what is easy.
The price of a narrow scope
Leaving a site or a contracted activity outside the scope does not remove the duty attached to it. Liability arising from law does not consult the boundary the organisation drew for itself. A narrow scope changes only one thing: that area is no longer in the system's field of view.
Documenting it
Scope is kept in writing and made available to interested parties. In Optifora's data layer scope is a shared document type belonging to the harmonised structure (4.3) — written once, serving every standard the organisation is bound by.
When it changes
Scope is revisited when a new site opens, when an activity starts being outsourced, or when the organisation restructures. A scope that has never changed belongs either to an organisation that never grew or to a document nobody reads.