Co-operative Bank         the auditor's profile

Auditor's Profile
ethics etc...
The Co-operative Bank's Partners, who read this report, do not have access to enough information to check every statement and every aspect of the bank's activity over the last year.The auditor's job is to get that overview and to assure the reader, as far as possible, that the report gives a true and fair view of the bank's impact on its Partners and its ethical and ecological behaviour.

So, what does it take to be the auditor? The most important characteristics are:

  • putting the Partners' interests first;
  • inquisitiveness coupled with a healthy scepticism;
  • the ability to understand the business and its wider social context;
  • a systematic approach to the business and the audit task;
  • and, ideally, a book of auditing rules.

There are some books about other companies' experience, but the rules of social auditing are still being written - with The Co-operative Bank making its own contribution. The essential qualities of the audit are that it is carried out by someone who is independent of the bank and that it looks systematically at what the bank is reporting within the wider context of its whole activity. The auditor should also be fully informed about recent technical and quality developments in corporate, ethical and environmental accountability.

The Co-operative Bank asked ethics etc... to audit its 1997 Partnership Report. ethics etc... was set up by Richard Evans and Traidcraft Exchange in 1997 to help companies develop systematic and auditable reporting of their performance against their wider social and ethical objectives and values.

Traidcraft is the UK's leading fairtrade organisation whose best known product is cafedirect coffee. Traidcraft has been marketing products from farmers and community businesses in Africa, Asia and Latin America since 1979 on the basis that its trading relationships are governed by a strict code of ethical conduct and equitable relationships.

In 1991 the company committed itself to a comprehensive evaluation of all its stakeholder relationships. Research showed that no systematic method existed for doing this, so Richard Evans, then External Affairs Director, was given the task of developing a social accounting methodology. The method developed was published in 'Auditing the Market', and Traidcraft plc published the first of its annual Social Accounts Reports in 1993. ethics etc... is a member of the Institute of Social and Ethical AccountAbility and Richard Evans serves on its executive group.
 

Front Page
 


The Centre for Tomorrow's Company was founded in 1996 to inspire and enable UK businesses to compete with the world's best through the inclusive approach - an approach which sees relationships as the foundation for sustainable success.The Centre is business-led, with a growing membership of organisations who come together to learn from one another and push forward the boundaries of best practice. It has developed criteria against which companies can assess their progress towards inclusivity and has been active in promoting the concept of a more inclusive annual report.