MODULE 35: SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND SOCIAL AUDIT. Prof. S. Parasuraman and Prof. Manish K. Jha. Module 35: Social Accountability and Social Audit

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1 MODULE 35: SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND SOCIAL AUDIT Module details Subject Name Principle Investigator Paper Name Module Paper Coordinator Content Writer Content Reviewer Language editor Keywords Learning Objectives Name Social Work Education Prof. S. Parasuraman and Prof. Manish K. Jha Community Organization Module 35: Social Accountability and Social Audit Dr. Mouleshri Vyas Dr. Mouleshri Vyas and Ms. Sashwati Mishra Prof. H. Beck Mr. Venkatanarayanan Ganapathi Community Organization, Community Practice, Social Accountability, Social Audit. This module will enable the student to 1. Social Accountability and its principles. 2. Various tools and strategies to implement social accountability within various development programmes.

2 Introduction: Social Accountability and its Forms In the development discourse, there is growing acknowledgment of accountability of institutions and actors, improving the delivery of the services and contributing to people centric policies and processes. The social contract between a democratic state and active citizenship is built on accountability and ensuring the interest of the most marginalised and excluded communities in the development agenda. Civic engagement stemming from collective actions of citizens and civil society and holding the government, service providers and public officials responsible for their actions broadly defines social accountability. The need for accountability emerges from the natural asymmetry of information between those who govern and those whom they are supposed to serve (World Bank, NA). Also even in democratic countries, the inequalities across the globe has risen and the system of governance has been found to be riddled with corruption, elitism and nepotism. In such a scenario, holding government responsible for its actions becomes imperative to realise social justice and participatory democracy. Social accountability is a dialogic process between citizens and any power-holding institutions aimed at building participatory democracy, addressing social exclusion and ensuring effective delivery of services (UNDP, 2013). Social accountability is about affirming and operationalising direct accountability relationship between the citizens and the state. It refers to a broad range of actions and mechanisms beyond voting that citizens can use to hold the state to account for the delivery of social programmes. It is also about the actions on part of government, civil society, media, and other societal actors that promote or facilitate these efforts. To be effective social accountability mechanisms should complement and enhance conventional government mechanisms of accountability. It is increasingly held that establishment of social accountability mechanisms leads to improvement in government programmes and services. An important outcome would be to ensure that government social programmes work for poor people. Accountability efforts such as formal institutional checks and balances to curb misuse of power within the structures of state (executive, legislature, judiciary) are understood as horizontal accountability. In other words, horizontal accountability is a system of checking

3 abuses of power by any public agencies and government bodies. The government agencies or a public official could be called to give answers for the respective actions and can be penalised in case of misuse of power and dereliction of duties. Vertical accountability on the other hand is exercised by the citizens, civil society, media, journalists, grass root organisations to enforce delivery of quality services and performances from public institutions and officials. Vertical accountability originates out of the state apparatus whereas processes of horizontal accountability are in-built in the governance and structures of the state (UNDP, 2013). The earliest social accountability initiatives were aimed at increasing the efficiency of delivery of services. Some of these initiatives included the citizen report card, community monitoring and participatory planning. In the recent years, the realm of social accountability expanded to claiming and realising rights, building democratic and decentralised systems of governance. With this came, new tools and initiatives in social accountability which included participatory budgeting, gender budgeting, public expenditure tracking, social audits, citizen juries and other forms of public hearings as well as community based monitoring of development programmes. At the heart of these initiatives are mobilised communities, informed citizens, democratic-confrontational means of engagement with the powerful state apparatus and the need to be part of their own development agenda as active partners rather than passive beneficiaries. In the following section some of these social accountability measures will be discussed. Social Accountability Measures Social accountability measures include a broad spectrum of actors, methods and practices. These are initiated by a variety of actors including the citizens, grassroot organisations, parliamentarians, media and they employ different strategies such as planning, monitoring, researching, advocacy efforts, public disclosure of information and consensus building. The social accountability measures needs to be pitched at the relevant government functions and its ultimate success is dependent upon the context in which a particular social accountability tool is used; the principle and values governing its execution and the inclusion of all the stakeholder from demand and supply side. Some of the accountability

4 measures have focused on the policies and plan of the government bodies; analysis of budget and expenditures; delivery of services and goods and on public oversight of its functions (World Bank, 2005; Center for Good Governance, 2005). There are different methods and tools of social accountability. Some key components of social accountability practice include collection, analysis and dissemination of information, mobilisation of public support, advocacy and negotiation for change. Social accountability initiatives are mostly collaborative, conflictive and independent. In certain cases, some of these initiatives are institutionalized. In India, under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), it is mandatory to conduct social audit twice in a year in a gram panchayat. This provision is integrated in the MGNREG Act itself, making conduct of social audit a responsibility of the Social Audit Unit. This process ensures participation and actual conduct of the audit through a cadre of Village Resource Persons drawn from the village population itself. Similarly development programmes and their processes of formulation and implementation have also integrated social accountability measures such as wall paintings, management information systems, citizen s charter, participatory budgeting, social audits, gender budgeting and citizen s report card. Following is a simple description of some of these accountability measures and these can be studied in an in-depth manner by going through the reading list in the reference section of this module. Also these readings will provide illustration of these measures being used in different parts of the world. Wall paintings are information and implementation details of the programmes provided to the citizens. It is the closest and simplest means of accountability and it is close to where the citizens reside and in a language that is easily accessible and comprehensible to them. These are used in many schemes and flagship programmes in India including the Swacch Bharat Mission (SBM), MGNREGA, government schools and others. Citizen s Charter is a document, which systematically provides information to the citizens on standard and quality of services and on grievance redressal mechanism in case the services are not provided on time. It aims to improve the quality of services by publishing standards, which users can expect for each service they receive from the government. It is a

5 tool for ensuring the delivery of services to citizens with specified standards, quality and time frame. Citizen s Charters can be seen at Primary Health Centres (PHCs), Fairprice/Public Distribution Shops (PDS), Municipality and Collectorate s Office and others. Management Information Systems (MIS) is a system that ensures that all records and information available to the government agency implementing a service delivery scheme or a development programme is accessible to the public through a web portal. Such portal and the MIS available on the same cannot be password protected and the same data is available to the government agency as well as the citizens. The nature of information that is proactively disclosed rages from funding for the schemes or development programmes in the respective financial years; organogram of the implementing agency at the national, state, district, block and village/local level; list of beneficiaries; wages earned; assets created; complaints registered and redressed; distribution of participation with respect to gender and socio-economic profile, government orders and circulars and others. MGNREGA MIS is one of the biggest online repositories of information and resources and is available and accessible to public. Citizen Report Card is a social accountability tool, which reflects the performance of the public institution with regards to the services it delivers to the citizens. The performance of the public institutions is evaluated in terms of providing access to the services; quality and reliability of services; problems encountered by users of services and responsiveness of service providers in addressing these problems. The citizen report card also highlights transparency measures such as service provisions like disclosure of service quality standards and norms as well as costs incurred in using a service including hidden costs such as bribes. In India, CRC is being used in Bangalore to improve the delivery of services. Participatory Budgeting is a process that enables the public to participate directly in the different phases of the formulation of the budget, decision-making, and monitoring of the execution of the budget. Participatory budgeting impacts targeted budgeting and in monitoring the public expenditure. This tool has been used in Malawi by the Justice Economic Network to analyze the budgetary allocation and expenditure on health and education and used widely in Brazil during the 1980 for the municipal budgets.

6 Grievance Redress Mechanism aims at ensuring maximum levels of accountability and transparency in the implementation of public programmes. It is important to institutionalize: time bound, participatory and decentralized grievance redress mechanisms that empower citizens to register grievances faced by citizens in accessing their benefits/entitlements and receive time bound redressal of the same. Gender Budgeting helps in analyzing and monitoring the expenditure and allocations of the budget from a gender-lens. It encompasses a gendered-base assessment of the budget and providing feedback to the government if the needs of various groups such as girls, women, boys and others are met or not. Social Audit is a participatory process through which community members monitor the implementation of government programs and projects in their community. It is mostly an outcome of mobilized communities, awareness of rights and entitlements and determination to be part of the development agenda by the citizens (Khadka and Bhattarai, 2012; UNDP, 2013). In India, social audit was an outcome of grass-roots struggles for having access to documents related to wages and entitlements of the people but out of their reach. Lack of accountability, transparency, accessibility, complicated paper work and delays have affected social welfare schemes and denied rights to the poor and pushed grassroots organisation in the country to demand right to information. The Mazdoor Kishan Shakti Sangathan- MKSS (grassroots organisation in Rajasthan) spearheaded the right to information campaign in 1990s. Their efforts established the need for a comprehensive legislation enabling citizens to access government documents. This campaign led to passing of the Right to Information Act With the availability of public documents, the workers and activists publicly scrutinised official records and highlighted the malfunctioning and ineffectiveness in the implementation of social programmes during the public hearings (jan sunwai). This process of consolidation and examination of public documents, verification of the collected evidence and sharing the findings of the same encompasses the process of social audit. Social audit is a way of measuring, understanding, reporting and improving an organization s social and ethical performance. The objective of social audit is to assess the physical and financial gap between needs and resources available for local development, increase the efficacy of local development programmes,

7 scrutinizing policy decisions from the perspective of needs and priorities of the locality and the rural poor. More broadly the purpose is to enhance local democracy, community participation and give voice to disadvantaged groups. To enhance local capacities for social audit, it important to have a team of trained social audit experts at the district level who would further increase awareness and train grassroots level stakeholders on social accountability methods and processes. Social Accountability: Social Audit in India The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Audit of Schemes Rules, 2011, provides the legal framework for social audit of the scheme by government functionaries at state, district, and block levels, and village level workers under MGNREGS. It specifies that the State Government would submit a summary of findings of social audits conducted during the financial year to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. It has also mandated setting up of Social Audit Unit in each state, which would be responsible for conduct of social audit in all the gram panchayats twice a year in the whole state. Social Audit is the examination and assessment of a programme/scheme conducted with the active involvement of people and comparing official records with actual ground realities. Social Audit is a powerful tool for social transformation, community participation and government accountability. Section 17 of the MGNREGA has mandated social audit of all works executed under the MGNREGA. Social audits focuses on the performance of a programme in fulfilling its intended social objectives and ethical vision through consultation with a range of stakeholders including social programme beneficiaries, community members, government officials and verifying the information obtained with documents and physical evidence. Thus social audits examines and assesses the social impact of specific programmes and policies. Social audit is a tool for social accountability and transparency. Many grassroot organisations see social audit as a celebration of democracy where the weakest and the most excluded have a platform to participate, assert their rights and mobilise to upset the powerful and corrupt

8 structures. There are some structural, programmatic and financial challenges to social audits that reduces it impact at the ground level. Currently there are many challenges to social audit including getting access to the government documents. In spite of the Right to Information Act 2005, many documents are not made available to the auditors and this impacts the verification process and in-turn the social audit process. Another challenge is the lack of independence of Social Audit Unit from the implementing agency under MGNREGA. Funding of SAU in many states is still dispersed from the implementing agency of MGNREGA compromising the independent functioning of the SAU. In many large states, the SAU are not fully established or completely functional in absence of supporting staff appointments. The situation of follow up action on the finding of the social audit process is dismal in the country. This has also resulted in loss of faith and in popularization of social audit as a means of social accountability. The commitment to accountability as expressed in the Social Audit of Schemes Rules 2011 and MGNREGA needs demonstrative actions in terms of nonpolitical appointments in the SAU; training of the implementing agency functionaries and SAU staff; budgetary allocation and follow up action on the social audit findings. Conclusion Social accountability is a political exercise as inclusion of the weakest and poorest is a crucial element of it along with invigorating the supply side through incentives and sanctions. There is a growing trend of many global institutions adopting and integrating social accountability agenda in their programmes and policies. It is essential to draw lessons of social accountability across the globe, document good practices for peer learning, understanding the context in which a particular model of social accountability has been successful. Social accountability is most effective when the learnings from the processes are used to build capacity and responsiveness of the government machinery along with consolidating the collective action of the civil society. Social accountability at its best will include the weakest and the most marginalised and will see the public participation right from the beginning to the end of a development programme or government service delivery.