Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) Best Practice Guidance

5.3 Sequence of Audits
A site of employment may be assessed via a combination of the following methods:
l Full Initial audit: Means the first time a site of employment is audited.
l Periodic Audit: Usually a full audit used to monitor supplier sites on an on-going basis. The intervals
between periodic audits may vary depending on the individual member.
l Follow-up audit: Depending on the outcome of the initial audit, a follow-up audit may be required.
Follow-up audits are normally used to check progress against issues found in the initial audit, and so
may be of shorter duration than an initial or full audit.
l Full Follow-up Audit: This term is used to describe a site visit when the extent of the nonconformances
found at a previous audit was so broad that a full audit would be required to verify
corrective action. In this case the methods and scope resemble an initial audit, but take into
account previous audit findings.
l Partial follow-up audit: The term used to describe an audit where the auditor visits a site but only
checks progress against issues found during a previous audit. This should then be recorded in
Sedex as a partial follow-up audit.
l Desktop follow-up: Can be used for certain corrective actions where a site visit is not required
and which are able to be verified remotely e.g. through photographic evidence or documents
provided via e-mail.
Note: Where an auditor re-visits a site to check all items of the labour code then this should be recorded as a
full follow-up, and noted on the audit report.
5.4 Labour Codes
SMETA Best Practice Guidance (4-Pillar Version 4.0, May 2012)
SMETA BPG has been developed to provide guidance for auditing against the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI)
Base Code and local law. In addition, the guidance can be adopted and tailored to carry out audits against a
range of other labour codes based on the conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). However,
in order to call it a SMETA audit the standard used must include the ETI Code / laws and the protocol must be
in line with this BPG.
Note: Since Sedex allows sharing of audit data, any company uploading a SMETA audit must exactly follow this
SMETA Best Practice Guidance (BPG), especially ensuring that non-compliances uploaded on the system have
been measured against at least the ETI Code and the law. Companies may use this methodology for a variety
of codes, but it must not be called a SMETA audit unless it follows the BPG.
Details of the ETI Code and the items to be investigated during a SMETA audit are found In Appendix A1:
“Guidance by Clause”.
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