Auditor Certification Pilot Update
We are excited that the pilot for the APSCA Auditor Certification process will take place in Istanbul, Turkey on 9 & 10 November 2017.

Initially, the pilot was to also take place in China the following week, however, following a very productive Executive Board Meeting, it was determined that a postponement will enable us to focus on one event, take key learnings and effectively recalibrate and adjust the process where required before the pilot in China.

The response to participate in the pilot process was positive with over 100 people applying from 26 of our Member Firms.  The auditors selected to participate have a wide range of experience; from less than 1 year to more than 20 years, less than 25 audits to more than 200 social compliance audits, wide spread of education and workplace experience in addition to audit experience.  At least one auditor was selected from each member firm who applied.
The Pilot Exam in Turkey will take a full day and be divided into 3 sections. Upon arrival the participants will be divided into 3 groups and rotate to ensure they complete all 3 sections within the day.
          1.0  Multiple Choice & Short Answers
           2.0  Case Study
​           3.0  Simulated Interview 

 The Simulated Interview group will be divided into 4 groups for different scenarios.  These scenarios have been developed with clear scoring criteria being used by each interviewer.  These scenarios are:

      1.       employee interview
      2.       opening meeting
      3.       closing meeting
      4.       management interview

In order to capture feedback, we will be holding debrief sessions throughout the day with each group and as a collective group at the end of each day. 

As this is a pilot, none of the participants will receive APSCA certification as a result of their participation in the exam and results from the pilot will not be identified to any specific person.  They will be used anonymously to improve the overall process.

We will share more about the pilot performed in Turkey in next month’s newsletter. 

Public Comment – What’s Next?  
As we mentioned in September’s Newsletter, we had a great response to our Public Comment invitation.  The Working and Consultation Groups have discussed the feedback received and to recommend further refinements to the documents.​
The Executive and Stakeholder Boards met the week of 23 October 2017 in the USA to finalise both the APSCA Code of Professional Conduct and Competency Framework for Social Compliance Auditors, and are continuing to make progress.  

More to come and we appreciate all the support received thus far.

Executive Stakeholder Board Meeting, USA, October 2017.  
From Left:  Jonathan Ivelaw-Chapman (Sedex), Laura Chapman Rubbo (The Walt Disney Company), Rochelle Zaid (SAAS), Christian Ewert (FTA), Darrel Doren (BSCI), Christophe Liebon (Intertek), Betty Hutchison (Bureau Veritas), Avedis Seferian (WRAP), Rona Starr (APSCA), Rajan Kamalanathan (Bureau Veritas), Fred Waelter (UL LLC), Randy Rankin (Independent), Petra Herbertz-Crumpler (Walmart), Effie Marinos (SGS).
Photo taken by Greg Gardner (Arche Advisors).

New APSCA Members
We are excited to announce that APSCA membership continues to grow. We have 6 new APSCA members to announce this month:  API Audit Limited, Globalgroup of Companies Limited, Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency, Partner Africa, SIPAS CR-PERU and The British Standards Institution (BSI Group)  

This now brings our membership to 40.  

Welcome to our new members!

General Meeting 2017
A reminder for APSCA firm members that our 2nd General Meeting is scheduled in Koln, Germany on 4 December – 13:00 – 15:00 with time following for everyone to meet and mingle over a light afternoon beverage.

Please follow the link below to our website for further details and to register your participation no later than 30 October 2017 –
http://www.theapsca.org/general-meeting-registration.html

Note:  the password for this page was detailed in the email invitation forwarded to all members.  Should you need this password again please email us:  director@theapsca.org
​

APSCA Support Statement
As launched in last month’s Newsletter, the APSCA Stakeholder Board has developed a Support Statement following many requesting how they could more formally offer their support to APSCA’s efforts, beyond the working/ consultation groups.  Please find a copy of the Support Statement on our website: http://www.theapsca.org/support-statement.html
We continue to receive more and more supporters providing their permission to use their name/ logo and would welcome even more of you!  If you would like to offer your support and have your organization’s name / logo placed on our website, please let us know by contacting director@theapsca.org
 

BSR Conference 2017
​BSR held their conference “How Business Leads” in Huntington Beach, California this month. 

APSCA was pleased to participate in a panel focused on “Integrating Sustainability through Risk and Opportunity”.  It was also a great event to catch up with APSCA members.

To see more, check out our “Out and About” page on our website: 
http://www.theapsca.org/out–about.html

Public Comment Update
As scheduled, the Public Comment survey for our draft APSCA Code of Professional Conduct and the Competency Framework for Social Compliance Auditors closed on 31 August 2017.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to provide feedback.  We were very excited to have over 70 people/ groups respond and from such a broad range including representatives from auditors (which included employed, freelance and sub-contractors), audit firms, brand/ retailers, consultants, NGO and manufacturers. 

Whilst the satisfaction rate for the documents was 90+%, obviously there were still a few that were dissatisfied and we appreciated the fact that they were able to clearly articulate where they saw the gaps and we are now in the process of reviewing these.

Highlights of the comments:
·     Reader did not review the Competency Framework – many of their comments would have been answered through reading both documents.
·     How will APSCA validate the Code is being upheld and the auditors meet the expectations within the Competency Framework.
·     How will APSCA investigate allegations of failing to uphold the Code.
·     More detail for each section of the Code, ie. examples, what does good look like?
·     Suggest Separating the Code – Auditors and Audit Firms.
·     Concerns that the Competency Framework is setting a global strategy for a few large firms and attempting to lock out smaller firms.
·     Will APSCA produce a separate Competency Framework for the Audit Firms?
·     Will APSCA determine how audit reports should be scored, centralize the collection of audits and set standard, hold calibration sessions, set time period to upload reports etc.?
·     APSCA to develop a professional / knowledge center.
​
Response:
Whilst the documents were out for Public Comment, we began the work to define an objective process for receiving, managing and conducting investigations on complaints. 

Also under development is the examination format/ questions which will be piloted in November in Turkey and China.

The Rules, which were part of the Code development process completed by Working Group 3, were removed for Public Comment as they were not quite ready late June, however, this is part of our next step.

There will be two codes, one for Auditors and one for Audit Firms.

We have not discussed two Competency Frameworks, however, we will consider this as we will consider a professional/ knowledge center and how this fits within APSCA’s strategy.

It has not been the intent that APSCA will determine how audit reports are scored, to centralize the collection of audits or set standards, nor does APSCA intend to specify the length of time between the audit being conducted and the report uploaded.  This is the role of the Initiative, Brand/ Retailer and beyond what we see the overall expectations of APSCA are.

Again, we thank you for all the feedback.  This is a major milestone for APSCA and we look forward to keeping our members up-to-date in the coming months regarding the finalpublished documents.  Should you have additional questions please email us on:  director@theapsca.org

New APSCA Members
APSCA continues to grow and we are pleased to announce 8 new members this month:   ALGI International Inc., Best Compliance Limited, Centre Testing International Group Co., Ltd (CTI),​ CSR Certification and Solutions Limited,  Globalgroup Certification Limited, Leverage Limited, Madeown International Testing Certification Inc. and QMSCERT Audits Inspections Certifications Ltd (Q-CERT).   

This now brings our membership to 34 with many other membership applications in progress.

Welcome to our new members!

General Meeting 2017
A reminder for APSCA members that our 2nd General Meeting is scheduled in Koln, Germany on 4 December – 13:00 – 15:00.

Please follow the link below to our website for further details and to register your participation no later than 30 October 2017 –
http://www.theapsca.org/general-meeting-registration.html

Note:  the password for this page was detailed in the email invitation forwarded to all members.  Should you need this password again please email us:  director@theapsca.org

APSCA Support Statement
​The APSCA Stakeholder Board has developed a Support Statement following many requesting how they could more formally offer their support to APSCA’s efforts, beyond the working/ consultation groups.  This has been officially launched this week and you will find a copy of the support statement on our website: http://www.theapsca.org/support-statement.html​
We are very excited to have a number of supporters from around the world provide permission to use their name/ logo and would welcome even more of you!  If you would like to offer your support and have your organization’s name / logo placed on our website, please let us know by contacting director@theapsca.org

BSR Conference 2017
The BSR 25th anniversary Conference, “How Business Leads”, will be held 24 – 26 October in Huntington Beach, California, USA.

APSCA will be presenting as part of the panel focused on “Integrating Sustainability through Risk and Opportunities” on Wednesday 25 October 4.15pm.
 If you are able to join the session please come and say “Hi”.

To learn more follow this link:  http://bsr17.org/

Stay Up-To-Date
Visit our website www.theapsca.org to see the work-in-progress and follow us on LinkedIn.

Public Comment Invitation
Draft Code of Professional Conduct & Competency Framework for Social Compliance Auditors

As per our announcement in the APSCA June 2017 Newsletter, APSCA has now released for Public Comment the draft APSCA Code of Professional Conduct and the Competency Framework for Social Compliance Auditors.

We are excited to have reached this milestone and invite all stakeholders in the social compliance industry to provide feedback as we near the finalization, release and implementation of the certification process for social compliance auditors.

Follow the link to our website to log your feedback via survey monkey:   http://www.theapsca.org/public-comment.html
Please note the surveys will be open until 31 August 2017.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us:  director@theapsca.org

APSCA Implementation Team
With the progress towards public comment for the draft APSCA Code of Professional Conduct (Code) and Competency Framework Social Compliance Auditors,  APSCA has commenced work on the implementation process for the Auditor Certification process.

We have received interest from some wanting to participate on the consultation group – if you are interested please let us know by emailing director@theapsca.org.  We appreciate support from member firms, brands, retailers, schemes, initiatives and any interested party.  Whilst this is being developed for certification of auditors, we appreciate and need feedback from those that will be the user and receiver of the services provided by the auditors.​
We anticipate the ask to be a couple of 1 hour phone calls over the coming few months plus request for feedback to documentation as it is being developed.  The goal is to pilot the examination process during Q4 – specific country(s) TBA.
Look forward to having your participation as we continue to move forward.

APSCA Annual General Meeting

The APSCA Annual General Meeting will be held on the 45 December 2017 in Cologne, Germany.  All members are invited to participate in the General Meeting and more information will be shared with members in the coming weeks.

​Out & About
Remember to view the “Out & About” page on our website and send any photos of APSCA members attending meetings, conferences and forums.  We want to share all the great work you are doing.   Check it out!    http://www.theapsca.org/out–about.html

Should you have any photos to share, please email us at director@theapsca.org

​APSCA Membership
Our Membership is continually growing, and we look forward to announcing our new member in the August edition of our Newsletter. For more information on becoming a member of APSCA, please see our website: http://www.theapsca.org/membership.html or email: director@theapsca.org