Social Audit | Enlite Cafe

A social audit is a process that people use to analyze and appraise their social, economic, and environmental circumstances.
It entails the proactive involvement of citizens in the observation and assessment of public services and programs’ efficacy.
Social audits are a common instrument for encouraging accountability, openness, and sound governance.

The 73rd Amendment which deals with Panchayat Raj institutions gave rise to the importance of social audits as a tool for measuring social accountability in organizations.
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, of 2005 established regular “Social Audits” to guarantee accountability and transparency in the program

Multi-Perspective: Take into account the opinions of all parties involved.
Comparative: Provide the organization a way to assess how it performs in relation to industry standards and the performance of other organizations.
Comprehensive: Provide an account of every facet of the organization’s operations and output.
Regular: Create social media profiles frequently to ensure that the idea and the practice permeate the organization’s whole culture and range of operations.
Participatory: Promote stakeholder sharing of their values and involvement.
Multidirectional: Stakeholders are multidirectional, sharing and providing input on various fronts.
Confirmed: An agency or somebody with the necessary experience audits social media accounts without having any personal stake in the company.
Disclosed: In the interests of accountability and transparency, audited accounts are made available to stakeholders and the general public.

Empowerment and political awareness.
Accountability and Transparency.
Strengthens Gram Sabha.
Monitoring and Feedback.
Addressing financial irregularities and making the common man aware of governance.
Realize the real spirit of citizen-centric governance.

Lack of Infrastructure: To address complaints raised by the public during an inspection at the local level.
Lack of Political and Administrative will: in establishing social auditing procedures.
Lack of Severe Penalties: For those who obstruct the process.
Lack of Awareness: There aren’t enough informed and educated citizens to conduct frequent audits.
Low-Skilled Capacity: Inadequate managerial and technical ability in areas like accounting and bookkeeping.
One Size Fits All Approach: Due to linguistic and cultural limitations, the social audit procedure is not consistent between states. No Social Audit tools are benchmarked across districts for comparative analysis.

Using Management Information System (MIS) to keep track of program specifics at all levels to expedite the planning, execution, and feedback phases of the program lifecycle
The selection of Directors of Social Audit Units(SAUs) should be free of political control.