Lecture Note

Unit.4

ProfS.K.Sahu

Good Governance and Social Audit

Social audit is proposed as a supplement to conventional audit to help

Government departments/public agencies to understand and improve their
performance as perceived by the stakeholders and to improve
performance. Social audit is to be done at different levels of government and
the civil society.
Social audits, a growing form of civil society activism, may help close
this feedback loop between the government and constituents. Social
audits are typically community gatherings where local government
plans are discussed and citizens can testify about their experiences
with public services. Some countries, such as Rwanda, have
conducted community radio programs where district officials discuss
proposed plans and listeners call in. The overwhelming response to
my presentation on monitoring and tracking budget performance also
suggests that data visualization and maps can serve as powerful tools
for social audits.

For social audits to work, however, three requirements must be met.

First, citizens must have access to the information under inquiry.
Second, as traditional social audits can entail a review of thousands of
government document pages, training, and preparation for community
member meetings may be required. Lastly, there must be some legal
recourse for evidence of fraud or mismanagement discovered in the
social audit.

Despite its flaws, the Ugandan Budget Information fulfills the first of
these two requirements, but if evidence of fraud or mismanagement is
found, there is often no punitive action taken. With a corruption
perception index ranking of 140 out of 177, many question whether
this is politically viable in Uganda.  The current trend in Uganda is
to ‘militarize’ ineffective government programs, as recently proposed
as a reform measure to address the controversy surrounding
government’s NAADS program. Without incorporating effective citizen
engagement in such reforms, however, there is risk that more of the
same will continue. 

The potential of social audits has already been demonstrated in

Rwanda, Kenya, and India.  In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, the
first state government to require by law the conducting of social
audits, “[officials] embraced the audits in part because they realized it
was good politics to keep programs for the poor free from corruption.”

The implementation of social audits could help the Budget Information

website fulfill its potential as a powerful tool for accountability.
Moreover, such audits can help the open data and aid transparency
movement make progress toward good governance by giving
necessary weight to government publication of
information and effective citizen feedback. 

The effectiveness of the social audit as a grievance redressal mechanism was measured to
be around 80 per cent".Mashreque (2017) has succinctly analyzed implementation human
rights including rights to information NREGA guidelines require that information is disclosed
to the public through boards at the village level, and that all information requests related to
NREGA are satisfied within seven days. Moreover, all NREGA documents are digitized and
regularly uploaded to the MIS at the state and central levels. All the data is available to the
public. The key innovation and what has made this a celebrated case study, however, is the
institutionalization of Social Audits through which this information is socialized at the local
level, effectively allowing citizens to understand and use this information to enhance
accountability.
The Social Audit process itself is highly participatory: after collecting all the relevant
information, village auditors conduct information sharing sessions which help citizens
understand the scheme and allow discussion over implementation. Evaluations of the social
audit process i showed significant improvements in levels of awareness among program
beneficiaries, which have in turn led to improvements in program implementation (in
combination with government support of the process, which makes immediate grievance
redress possible).
Promoting bottom-up social accountability: includes beneficiaries and civil society becoming
involved in key stages of a SSN to hold service providers to account and complement
existing accountability mechanisms This involvement can range from beneficiary selection
to verification and monitoring. However, such involvement should also reflect on who should
be involved and when.
The Government of Andhra Pradesh itself has set challenging targets for securing sustainable social and
economic growth, improving quality of life, increasing participation and reducing poverty in the State.
The State’s “Vision 2020” aims at making Andhra Pradesh the foremost State in the country in terms of
growth, equity and quality of life by 2020. In addition to being a facilitator of economic growth, Vision
2020 emphasises the critical role of the Government in promoting human development and alleviating
poverty. The growth-centred and people-centred governance approach in Andhra Pradesh includes
refocusing Government priorities and shifting the spending from unproductive areas towards achieving
high priority developmental goals. The Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) is committed to
becoming a simple, moral, accountable, responsive and transparent government. Government
employees will need to be trained to provide quality services. In
addition,robustmechanismsformonitoringquality(e.g.,throughcitizensurveysor social audits)

Accordingly, the State is promoting a people-centered approach to development by means of

empowering civil society movements through formation of formal and informal groups and
programmes, thus creating an interface between the state and the civil society. People have given
power to the state to administer tax, maintain law and order, positive discrimination for the
development of disadvantaged, etc. In return, the government is expected to be responsible and
accountable to people. The balance between power given by the people to the government and
accountability to the people by government departments is not just compliance to laws and regulations
and financial aspects but also to the overall outcome reflected in the well-being of the people. This well-
being is ensured in a good society and a good society is one where individuals, families, groups,
communities, the government and the implementing structures share certain values contributing to the
well being of the people. Social audit ensures that the value system of the government and people
match and tangible results contribute to socialbenefits.

The departments and organisations in AP enjoy a unique combination of political, administrative, and
civil society settings, which are conducive for carrying out social auditing: formation of Community
Based Organisations (CBOs), interface between government and people, attempt towards simplification
of procedures in departments having high degree of people’s interface. Citizen’s charters, performance
monitoring and process monitoring has in a way cleared the ground for introducing ‘generation next’
monitoring processes such as social auditing. Given below are the threshold conditions, which exist in
Andhra Pradesh, for adopting social audit on a wider scale across the departments and by the civil
society. The figure below shows individuals being part of the family, groups and the community may
participate/interface with one or more departments depending on their needs. These interactions are,
however, governed by a value system arising out of society/community, state (constitution and human
rights), and administration (humane governance and financial accountability).
Social audit accommodates values drawn from three entities. One is that of the
department/organisation. Another is that of the stakeholders. And, the third is that of the
community/people and organisations interfacing or serving. The core values of these entities guide the
process of implementation tuned towards people’s well-being.

that values are distinct for the department, the stakeholders, and the society. However, some of the
values may be shared between two of these entities or by all three of them. The combination of
activities, flowing from the value system, is expected to contribute to the social benefits, including that
of sustainability.and administration (humane governance and financial accountability).

Social audit accommodates values drawn from three entities. One is that of the
department/organisation. Another is that of the stakeholders. And, the third is that of the
community/people and organisations interfacing or serving. The core values of these entities guide the
process of implementation tuned towards people’s well-being.

that values are distinct for the department, the stakeholders, and the society. However, some of the
values may be shared between two of these entities or by all three of them. The combination of
activities, flowing from the value system, is expected to contribute to the social benefits, including that
of sustainability.

Values of the department/organisation could be culled out from the policy documents, project
implementation plans, and administrative norms and rules; they are the core values guiding the
activities/programmes of any department or organisation.

Values perceived by stakeholders are those by leaders, funders, policy makers, managers, department
staff, partners (NGOs, academia, etc.), individuals, family and community.

Societal values are those perceived by the society, community and groupswithin.
The differences between stakeholder values and societal values are that stakeholder values are specific
to those who are benefiting from the service or programme and societal values are that of
community/society at large and reflect the collective aspirations of the community.

Good Governance can be understood as a set of 8 characteristics: in social audit

1.Equity and inclusiveness

To ensure that all stakeholders feel that they have a stake in the organisation

and do not feel excluded.

2.Responsiveness

Organisations, institutions and processes try to serve all stakeholders within a

reasonable timeframe and within the means available to them.

3. Participation

Direct and indirect involvement with the organisation through the Social

Audit and other means open to all stakeholders.

4. Consensus oriented

Be prepared for, meditation between different interests in society and the

community to reach a broad consensus.

5.Effectiveness and efficiency

Produce results that meet the needs of society at large, and stakeholders in

particular, while making use of the resources available and using them

carefully and environmentally.

6. Transparency

Decisions are made and enforced in a manner that follows the organisation’s

rules and procedures, and all relevant documents are open for inspection.

7. Rule of Law

Good governance requires fair legal frameworks that are enforced impartially

and human rights are upheld at all times.

8..Accountability

Be accountable to the public and to the organisational stakeholders through

whatever means available.

Organisations can use the above list as guidance when deciding what to include in

the governance Statement