CCC Reference Guide on Code Implementation & Verification
Section 4. Critical issues on code implementation and verification

Social auditing

Social accounting and auditing is a way of measuring and reporting on an organisation's social and ethical performance. An organisation which takes on an audit makes itself accountable to its stakeholders and commits itself to following the audits recommendations. Labour-related NGOs and trade unions have to be involved at the local production level if good quality monitoring and credible verification is to take place. Most social audits presently are carried out by specialized firms (often quality control firms) who lack the possibility for realizing such involvement, and consequently the quality of the audit suffers. This is something that the CCC has always believed, but the pilot projects have enabled us to gather concrete evidence to support this belief - something, which is helping companies to begin to accept this position. The precise role which these groups should play in monitoring and verification systems is still something that needs considerable attention, as the varied contexts found throughout the global garment industry means that what works or is appropriate in some situations might not be feasible in others.

Auditing also requires multiple skills and a participatory and often qualitative approach that is hard to find within one organization. The pilots included combinations of NGO staff for worker interviews and commercial firms for workplace inspections. The results were mixed, and the approach of developing specially trained teams, tested out in the FWF pilots has more perspective.

• CCC has published an extensive report on social auditing:
  Looking for a quick fix
  How weak social auditing is keeping workers in sweatshops
  Clean Clothes Campaign, Nov 2005

• In 2005 the International Labour Office concluded a six-month research project funded by the European Union to investigate the prevalence and main issues in the field of social auditing in Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.
  See: ( 2017kb"Social Auditing in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey; Results from survey and case study research" Ankara, Turkey. International Labour Office, 2005). As part of this project, a one-day workshop was held in Ankara on the 18th of May 2005 to get inputs from social auditors working for multinational brands and private auditing companies. The one-day workshop was a collaborative effort between the ILO and the 'Joint Initiative on Corporate Accountability and Workers Rights' (Jo-In).

• Sept 2001, Report Criticising Commercial Social Auditing
  Report criticises commercial social auditing and advocates alternative forms of labour standards assessment.

• June 2001 report: The reality behind the code, Working conditions in garment factories - producing for Vendex KBB, SOMO Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations. 139 kb).

• Sept 2000, "Monitoring the monitors: A Critique of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Labor Monitoring", Dara O'Rourke, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• Oct. 2000, Reliability of Pricewaterhousecoopers social audits challenged

• June 1999, Verité audit report: Summary of Inspection Findings for EVERGREEN INDSTRIES S.A. DE C.V. and FORMOSA TEXTILE S.A. DE C.V. Zona Franca San Bartolo, San Salvador, El Salvador.