What is Social Audit

A Social Audit Is A Systematic Study And Evaluation Of

Social Performance Of The Organization Which Is
Distinguished From Its Economic Performance.
The Term Social Performance Refers To The Any
Organizational Activity That Effect The General
Welfare Of Society

 Social audit - conducted jointly by the

government and the people, especially by those
people who are affected by, or are the intended
beneficiaries of, the scheme being audited.
Social audit conducted in addition for certain
types of schemes and activities, especially those
involving huge and/or disaggregated
expenditure.

The Scope of a Social Audit

SA is a management tool and accountability mechanism
which can enhance an organizations capacity to:

Evaluate their impact on stakeholders

A social audit is conducted over the life span of a scheme
or programme, and not just in one go or at one stage.
It audits the process, the outputs and the outcome
It audits planning, implementation, monitoring and
evaluation.
Determine how well they are living up to the values they
Improve their strategic planning process by identifying
potential problems before they come up; and
Increase their accountability to the groups they serve and
depend on.

Elements of a Social Audit

1. Raising awareness of rights, entitlements and
obligations under a scheme.
2. Specifically, about the right to participate in a social
audit.
3. Ensuring that all forms and documents are user
friendly.
4. Ensuring all relevant information is accessible,
displayed and read out.
5. Ensuring that the decision making process is
transparent, participatory and, as far as possible,
carried out in the presence of the affected persons.
6. Ensuring that all decisions, and their rationale, are
made public as soon as they are made.
7. Ensuring that measurements, certification and
inspection involves the affected people on a random
and rotational basis.

8. Ensuring that there are regular (six monthly)

public hearings (jan audit manch) where the
scheme and the process of social auditing is
publicly analyzed.
9. Ensuring that the findings of social audits are
immediately acted upon.
10. Also ensuring that these findings result in the
required systemic changes.

8 Steps in conducting SA
Assemble organization and secure agreement and
commitment.
Define and prioritize the organizations objectives
and establish the action it intends to perform to
meet them.
Identify the organizations stakeholders
Agree upon indicators, information, benchmarks
and targets.
Data gathering systems put in place.
Collating, analyzing and interpreting results
External verification process
Disclosure and act on results

6 Reasons to conduct a SA

Know what is happening

Understand what people think and want
Tell people what you are achieving
Strengthen loyalty / commitment
Enhance decision-making
Improve overall performance

Benefits OF SA:

Quality Management.
Recruitment and Retention of Employees.
Promote Genuine Partnerships w/ Suppliers.
Risk Management.
Better Governance.
Improved Accountability.
Member / Stakeholder Engagement.
Increased Investor Trust.
Brand Equity

Limitation
They are difficult to measure how much of the
benefit is caused by this programme.
Their classification under good or bad is not
universally accepted.
Most of them occur outside the organization
making it difficult for the organization to secure
data from these outside sources.