The quality policy is top management’s declared intent and direction for quality. Clause 5.2 requires it to be established, implemented and maintained.
Required content
It must be appropriate to the purpose and context of the organisation, provide a framework for setting quality objectives, and include commitments to satisfy applicable requirements and to continual improvement of the quality management system.
It must be available as documented information, communicated and understood within the organisation, and available to relevant interested parties.
”Understood” is the hard word
An auditor will ask people on the floor what the quality policy means for their job. They are not testing recall — nobody is expected to recite it. They are testing whether it has been communicated in a way that connects to actual work.
A policy framed and hung on a wall, which nobody can explain, is a communication failure and a legitimate finding.
Keep it short
The most effective policies are three or four sentences that sound like the organisation rather than like the standard. Long policies that paraphrase ISO 9001 back at the reader are common, forgettable, and harder to defend when someone is asked what they mean.
Its relationship to objectives
The policy sets direction; the objectives make it measurable. If your objectives cannot be traced to something the policy commits to, one of the two documents is wrong.