APSCA Continues to Gain Momentum Through Industry Commitment
WASHINGTON, September 28, 2018 (Newswire.com) - On 13 September 2018, APSCA's Executive Board met in Geneva Switzerland to optimize our development pathway and determine detailed objectives for 2019 - 2021. Emphasis was placed on enhancing legitimacy, sustaining growth and developing industry and organizational accountability.
As APSCA continues to evolve, there is an increasing requirement to reinforce clarity of our function. The fluidity of our development highlights challenges in ensuring we continue to establish relevance and credibility. These challenges are to be addressed through the realization and continuing re-optimization of our 2019 and beyond objectives.
Through industry commitment and support APSCA has enrolled over 2850 social compliance auditors from 41 audit firms located in more than 60 countries during 2018.
Rona Starr, President & CEO - APSCA
Respective of market demand, industry commitment has escalated since APSCA's formation. The augmentation of auditor enrollments is considered a direct reflection of this response; increasing by some 200% since April 2018 to reach over 2850 fully enrolled auditors at 25 September 2018 from over 40 audit firm members. Further, our auditor base spans across more than 60 countries with more than 45 different languages confirming such commitment is widespread and demanding of APSCA's international presence.
2018 Deliverables
Activities to September 2018 have delivered key outcomes across our strategic initiatives, and as we approach Q4, we are well positioned to realize the broad suite of objectives across validation, governance, and processes & system pillars. In addition to auditor enrollments, we have developed and piloted the Certified Social Compliance Auditor (CSCA) exam, enhanced and piloted the audit firm approval process and expanded our stakeholder engagement.
Our focus remains on the launch of part I (multiple choice) of the CSCA examination, in English and the re-launch of the Audit Firm Approval Process. These initiatives will continue to foster industry credibility and position our Members and CSCA's as the trusted professionals of Social Compliance Auditing.
2019 Strategic Plan
In looking forward to 2019, we are pleased to define key foundational objectives which are focused on the recognition of auditor competencies through the continued roll-out of the CSCA exam and sustained membership growth.
In the delivery of core outcomes, we will expand our auditor certification program to improve accessibility for non-English speaking auditors commencing with the launch of parts I, II (Case Study) and III (simulated interview) of the CSCA examination in simplified Chinese. In combination with the English CSCA exam format, this is expected to cover up to 80% of our current enrolled auditor base and further augment the rate of auditor certification. Additional languages will be rolled out throughout 2019 and 2020.
As a direct consequence, we are confident a relatively large number of APSCA CSCA's will be available by the end of 2019, and APSCA membership will become a key driver in auditor selection among users of social compliance audits.
Commensurate with growing demand, APSCA will start exploring opportunities to open Membership beyond third-party Audit Firms and their auditors. This proposed expansion will consider the needs of organizations that are consumers of our services, brands / retailers, initiatives and schemes as broadly represented by our Stakeholder Board.
APSCA is continuing to gain momentum and is progressing well on its journey to enhance the professionalism, consistency, and credibility of individuals and organizations performing social compliance audits.
We look forward to sharing further developments and achievements.
For more information on APSCA and our ongoing progress, please see our website (www.theapsca.org) and sign up to receive our monthly newsletter.
Source: Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors
