Government formulated scheme for Social Audit of Social Sector Schemes

• The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has formulated a scheme, namely Information-Monitoring, Evaluation and Social Audit (I-MESA) in FY 2021-22.
• Under this scheme, Social Audits are to be conducted for all the schemes of the Department starting FY 2021-22.
• These social audits are done through Social Audit Units (SAU) of the States and the National Institute for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj.

Social Audit:

• A social audit is a way of measuring, understanding, reporting and ultimately improving an organization’s social and ethical performance.
• A 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 auditing is taken up for the purpose of enhancing local governance, particularly for strengthening accountability and transparency in local bodies.

A social Audit is different from Financial Audit:

• Financial audits involve inspecting and assessing documents related to financial transactions in an organization to provide a true picture of its profits, losses, and financial stability.
• Social audits focus on the performance of a program in fulfilling its intended social objectives and ethical vision.

Advantages:

• Helps in Managing and measuring non-financial activities.
• Monitor internal and external consequences of the departments social and commercial interest
• Understanding of the administrative system from the perspective of the people: How the process and rules affect the citizens for whom these systems have been developed.
• In-depth scrutiny and analysis of the working of the public utility vis a vis its social relevance.
• Organisation can asses its social, economic and environmental impacts through social audit.
• Tool of feedback which can lead to improvement in policy implementation.
• Verification of deliverables
• Bring focus on outcomes and outputs rather than inputs.
• Safeguards against corruption and frauds.

Challenges:

• Lck of adequate administrative and political will
• Fce resistance and intimidation
• Sporadic and adhoc in nature.
• Highly localised in nature
• People’s participation has been minuscule due to the lack of education, awareness and capacity building among the common masses.
• Asence of an independent agency to investigate and act on social audit findings.