Social Auditing
|
||
|
|
Introduction Social auditing
is becoming an increasing issue to both businesses and voluntary sector
organisations. Social auditing
adds value to your organisation in several ways:
Why is Social Auditing useful to private
companies? Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) is becoming a major issue for large businesses. When it comes to social and environmental
performance 50 of the FTSE 250 companies reported for the first time in 2001/2,
103 produce stand alone reports, 95 include ethical and social information in
mainstream reporting and 36 have independent verification[1].
Social and environmental performance are becoming
a valuable part of a business marketing strategy… creating a USP over other
competitors. Like it or not you, or your customers, are
selling to an increasingly aware and conscientious public and operating in an
increasingly regulated market. In much the same way as ISO9000/2000 and similar quality standards grew in the 90’s, it
will increasingly become a requirement for businesses in a large
organisations supply chain to meet its social and environmental benchmarks. Social auditing
is the tool used to achieve these benchmarks. Why is social auditing useful to the
social enterprise and voluntary sector? Most Voluntary
sector organisations have always considered their impact on their social and
physical environments, but most have not tried to quantify this impact in any
significant way. In our
increasingly regulated and bureaucratised funding environment organisations
are coming under increasing pressure to quantify these impacts. It may be the
annoying ‘tick-box’ culture of government extending into our sector but,
unfortunately, we are forced to comply. It seems to be
harder, year on year, to get funding and a good social audit report could be
the difference between success and failure when making the big Community Fund
bid or European application. A common myth is that Social auditing is
difficult It isn’t. As long
as you are careful and attentive in setting up your auditing system you will
find it doesn’t place any significant additional strain on your organisation. What can Humberside CDA do for me? We can assist you
in setting up social auditing systems and/or act as in independent social
auditor for you. If you would like
to read more about social-auditing click here. You can also download
a copy of our “three phase framework” here. For further
information please email audit@humbersidecda.info Or call Jon
Clarke on 01482 449877 |
|