The first hour of an inspection sets its tone. What the officer asks for, and how quickly your institution produces it, tells them more about your governance than any interview will. Across the inspections I have sat through, the same five documents come up first.
The board and committee minutes for the last twelve months. Every one, with attendance. What the officer is reading for is not the resolutions. It is whether the same subjects keep appearing without resolution, and whether anyone ever disagrees.
The register of directors with their fit and proper file. Not the declaration. The file: the form, the qualifications, and the background check. If one director's file is incomplete, the finding is about the whole board, because composition is what an inspector tests first.
The credit policy, and the last three approvals made under it. The policy proves what you intended. The three files prove what you do. Where those two differ, you have a finding, and it is usually the most expensive one of the visit.
The arrears or portfolio report, with the board's response to it. A report that goes to the board and produces no minute is evidence that the board sees risk and does not act on it. That single combination has ended more institutions than outright fraud.
The conflict of interest register, with recusals. A register that lists interests and records no recusals says one of two things, and neither is good.
Almost nobody fails because a document does not exist. They fail because it exists in a cupboard, in a different format, in someone's inbox, or in a version that contradicts the approved one. The gap is rarely intent. It is that nobody has ever tested whether the institution can produce its own evidence on demand.
Pick a date three months back. Ask your finance officer, without warning, to produce that month's board pack, the minutes that approved it, and the arrears report it contained. Time how long it takes. If the answer is more than a few hours, or if what arrives is assembled rather than retrieved, you already know what the inspection will find.
Institutions that pass cleanly have one habit in common. They keep a single, dated, indexed evidence file that is updated as a matter of routine rather than before a visit. It is boring, it takes a few hours a month, and it converts an inspection from an event into a formality.
The scorecard on this site will tell you which of these five you can currently produce, and where the gap sits, in about fifteen minutes.
Ten questions, fifteen minutes, and a score with the first action your board should take.