Scope
VES applies to consequential decisions that may later require independent review. In insurance this includes claims, underwriting, delegated authority, referrals, settlements, reserves and renewals. Decisions may be human, rules-based, workflow-driven, AI-assisted, or combinations of these.
The standard addresses the evidence package around a decision. It does not prescribe how organisations reach decisions or require a particular technology, storage architecture or operating model.
Principles
- Point-in-time: applicability is assessed against the conditions in force when the organisation committed.
- Portable: evidence references can move beyond the originating workflow without losing declared meaning.
- Implementation-neutral: native evidence remains native and may originate in any conforming source.
- Independently reviewable: the package describes how another party can assess it later.
- Transparent qualification: limitations and indeterminate facts remain visible.
Core concepts
A shared vocabulary for preserving, checking and later understanding consequential decisions without reconstructing them from fragmented systems.
Most systems can describe a decision after the event. VES concerns whether the material evidence, authority and governing conditions relevant to that decision were preserved in a form that can be checked later.
A recorded action is not necessarily an explainable decision.
- Decision-State
- The material evidence, authority, governing conditions, system contribution and judgement relevant to a consequential decision at the time the organisation committed to it.
- Execution Boundary
- The point at which a recommendation, analysis or workflow result becomes a consequential organisational commitment.
- Point-in-Time Evidence
- Evidence captured at, or demonstrably applicable to, the execution boundary, before later change, hindsight or reconstruction alters the available picture.
- Decision Envelope
- A versioned, structured record that links a consequential decision to its relevant evidence objects, governing conditions, authority, system contribution, human judgement, commitment and verification information.
- Evidence Object
- A source artefact or reference—such as a document, runtime receipt, authority record, model output, system event, external data source or human review—described with provenance, integrity and decision relevance.
- Evidentiary Continuity
- The ability for decision-relevant evidence to remain intelligible and reviewable when responsibility, systems, people or organisations change.
- Reconstruction Burden
- The operational work required to reassemble why a consequential decision was made after its original decision-state has become fragmented, changed or unavailable.
- Reconstruction Gap
- The difference between the decision-state available at the time and what can later be assembled from surviving systems, documents and recollection.
- Independent Verification
- The ability for a reviewer to assess the declared structure, integrity, provenance and stated limitations of a VES Decision Envelope without relying solely on the originating user interface or an untested assertion.
- Decision-Evidence Maturity
- A capability continuum from L1 Narrative, through L2 Documentary and L3 Traceable, to L4 Preserved Decision-State.
Public model
Decision identity
The decision type, opaque subject reference, outcome and execution time.
Decision context
The material facts and source evidence considered in relation to the decision, with their declared relationship—for example, available, relied upon, excluded or superseded.
Governing conditions
The policy, wording, rules, requirements or instructions applicable at the time.
Business authority
The role, delegated authority, limits and approval state at execution.
System contribution
Rules, models, workflows or external systems that materially influenced the decision.
Human judgement
Review, intervention, approval, override or rationale where applicable.
Commitment
The organisational outcome, including financial, contractual or customer consequence.
Evidence integrity
References, hashes, signatures and declared provenance for Evidence Objects, where available.
Verification
The profile used, checks performed, result status and visible limitations.
The field-level model and normative requirement language are published in the technical specification.
Decision-Evidence Maturity
Narrative
The decision is described after the fact.
Documentary
Documents and artefacts are retained, but association or timing may be weak.
Traceable
Source evidence, versions and attributable decision history are linked.
Preserved Decision-State
A time-bound envelope preserves authority, conditions, human and system contribution, integrity data and a replay path.
What VES does not establish
VES is not generic AI governance, a runtime control gateway, a model registry, an audit log, a system of record, a certification programme, or a guarantee that a decision is correct, lawful, fair or compliant. A verification result applies only to the submitted evidence package and stated profile.
- VES does not establish that every relevant action or source artefact was captured.
- VES does not establish that the underlying contents of an Evidence Object are factually correct; it records how that object was declared, linked and assessed within the Decision Envelope.