Statement of performance of characteristics and requirements.
Policies are considered the first and highest level of documentation, from which the lower level elements of standards, procedures, and guidelines flow. This order, however, does not mean that policies are more important than the lower elements. These higher-level policies, which are the more general policies and statements, should be created first in the process for strategic reasons, and then the more tactical elements can follow. -Ronald Krutz The CISSP PREP Guide (gold edition) pg 13