What is Social Audit ?

 What is Social Audit ?

Ans : Social audit is a way of measuring, understanding, reporting and ultimately improving an organization’s social and ethical performance. Social audit helps to narrow gaps between vision/goal and reality, between efficiency and effectiveness. It is a technique to understand, measure, verify, report on and to improve the social performance of the organization. Social audit leaves an impact on governance. It values the voice of stakeholders, including marginalized/ poor groups whose voices are rarely heard. Social auditing is taken up for the purpose of enhancing local governance, particularly for strengthening accountability and transparency in local bodies.

Where can Social Audit be conducted and why?

Ans : Social Audit should be conducted in the public agencies where financial and non financial resources are used for development activities. Social Audit is conducted through participation of the people. 

The purpose of Social Audit is: 

* To strengthen good governance through a process that promotes transparency and accountability. 

* To increase public participation. 

* To enable people exercise their rights. 

* To enable effective implementation of the scheme. 

* To control irregularities. 

It should be kept in mind that Social Audit is not fault finding but fact finding process

: Who conducts Social Audit?

Ans : All the electors of the village participate in the Gram Sabha meeting and conduct the Social Audit. Any person or organisation associated directly or indirectly with the implementation process of the schemes, cannot participate in conducting the Social Audit. Decision is taken in the Gram Sabha meeting by the people on the basis of their experience and verification of information and records. Therefore the principal observer of the Social Audit is the people for whom the schemes are being implemented. Village Resource Persons perform the role of facilitator in conducting Social Audit. The whole process is monitored by the District Social Audit Unit under the guidance of the State Unit of Social Audit

What are the advantages of Social Audit?

Ans : 

The advantages of Social Audit may be described as under: a) Trains the community on participatory local planning. b) Encourages local democracy. c) Encourages community participation. d) Benefits disadvantaged groups. e) Promotes collective decision making and sharing responsibilities. f) Develops human resources and social capital.