General | Insite Compliance

Preparing for your SMETA Audit

A SMETA is a widely used and accepted audit methodology and report format. It has 3 elements:

A common Best Practice Guidance on conducting ethical trade audits
A common audit report format
A common corrective action plan format.

These are available to both Sedex members and non-members on the public section of the Sedex website: http://www.sedexglobal.com/ethical-audits/smeta

Section Title

If you are scheduling this audit at the request of a Sedex (company) member we ask that you register on Sedex as a B member and give our administrator access to upload the audit. Our administrator can then access your details from your completed Supplier Audit Questionnaire (SAQ.)

SMETA

A SMETA is a widely used and accepted audit methodology and report format. It has 3 elements:

A common Best Practice Guidance on conducting ethical trade audits
A common audit report format
A common corrective action plan format.

These are available to both Sedex members and non-members on the public section of the Sedex website: http://www.sedexglobal.com/ethical-audits/smeta/

Key People

The Production Manager, Health & Safety Manager, or HR Manager should be the main point of contact the day of the audit. It is important for them to attend both the opening and closing meetings, along with union and worker representatives.

Audit Scope

The audit will involve an assessment of your production site including any accommodation provided against the following standards:

The national and local laws in your country of operation,
Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Code, covering the nine topics of labour standards and Health & Safety.

For more details click here to download: Document 5 B Audit Scope Full details of the audit methodology and the way in which the findings are reported are available publicly at http://www.sedexglobal.com/ethical-audits/smeta/.

Required Documents

Part of the audit will include a detailed review of documents, such as time cards, payroll, wage slips, and personnel records.
For more details click here to download: Document 5C Document Review

Worker Interviews

It will be necessary to interview a cross section of workers, approx. 5- 10% of the workforce. These interviews may be in groups or one to one. Management must not be present at these, to safeguard the confidentiality of individuals, and where interpreters are necessary there must be no links between the site and the interpreter to ensure total impartiality. For more details click here to download: Document 5E Principles of Worker Interview Information for Sites’

Auditor Impartiality

As an additional support for good auditor conduct during an audit, auditors/audit companies are making available their own code of conduct for auditors, which describes the need for impartiality on behalf of the auditor. You are requested to sign this to confirm you have received and understood the content. For more details click here to download: Document 4

Non-Compliance

Where non-compliances are found we hope to agree both the corrective actions and the timescales at the end of the audit. For more details click here to download: Document 5J Non-Compliance Process and Sedex. You can also familiarise yourself with the documentation at:http://www.sedexglobal.com/ethical-audits/smeta/.