RFP/2017/859: Questions & Answers Factory Audit Services Questions General questions on RFP and process 1. Does the bidder have the choice to select only India specific locations for audits? That is correct. Answers Factory audit s service providers are invited to provide audit services offers in a segregated structure, per country, industry and type of audit, in line with applicable audit certifications and their expertise, per industry sector and products, focus on: a) Production Capacity b) Quality Management c) Corporate Social Responsibility Environmental management audit is not the focus of the current program, but could be quoted on segregated basis Annex A (Terms of Reference) 2. According to the TORs a bidder can present an offer to the textile industry and Corporate Social responsibility criteria only. The description of services at page 6 reports include social/labour and environmental issues together: This involves complete Audit of overall working conditions, health and safety and environmental issues. Environmental aspects are within the scope of Environmental Management System type of audits. Can Corporate Social Responsibility audits focus on social/labour issues alone, in accordance to the International Standards and Requirements quoted? 3. The International Standards and Requirements quoted in the RFP document and annexes includes standards and programs which do not set compliance criteria (for example UN Global Compact principles). ISO 26000:2010 is a guidance document for organisations on how businesses and organizations can operate Please find attached Annex C to facilitate technical offer presentation. Please refer to answer No 1 above. That is correct. Corporate Social Responsibility type of audit should focus only in social/labour conditions. Environmental management audit is not the focus of the current program, but could be quoted on segregated basis Please use SA8000, ISO 9001:2015 and ILO standards. UN Supplier Code of Conduct, UN Global Compact and ISO 26000:2010 are guidance documents. We kindly ask you to present your audit approach using the case scenarios on Annex H. 1
in a socially responsible way and it is clearly stated that this is not a certification standard. How should such standards be considered for the purpose of assessing a company level of compliance? 4. The UNHCR guarantees that the auditee will provide to the Factory Audit service provider unrestricted access to factory and persons. Has UNHCR contemplated the case that the auditee will not provide such access, resulting in unacceptable restrictions during the audit or audit cancellations and how to compensate the service provider in such cases for effort and expenses occurred? 5. The UNHCR may request support from the service provider for follow-up on Corrective Action Plans submitted by suppliers. Would such support consist in remote desk-based activity or could it include on-site follow-up audits? We don t expect this to happen as UNHCR suppliers have a contractual obligation to allow for factory audits. Not allowing it is a breach of the Frame Agreement with UNHCR and can result in termination of the contract. Therefore it is the interest of the suppliers to facilitate whatever is needed to carry out factory audits. Additionally, UNHCR staff will accompany and oversee the factory audit processes. It could include both. Corrective and preventive action plans are responsibility of UNHCR suppliers. However it is expected that the Auditor will prepare the list of nonconformities, which will be discussed with the Factory / Supplier during the audit closing conference. CAP should prepare by the UNHCR supplier and submit to UNHCR and the audit service providers. CAP should include visual proof (videos and photos), which will be reviewed by the audit service provider and UNHCR. On site follow up audits are not considered at this stage but could be considered later on. 6. The UNHCR would like the offer to include an international auditor that will follow the audits carried out at the different factories, with the support of local auditors. Is UNHCR expectation that the same international auditor attends in person all factory audits and for the whole duration of each? 7. With reference to point 4.2.1 of TORs, in order to answer to the following points: - Year founded and - Legal, financial and professional status of the company, including any ongoing litigations and audited financial statements for the last three years is enough submit the Vendor Registration form or is it necessary to submit a That is correct. However, we invite audit service providers to provide offers in segregated way: a) International and b) Local audit service. It is not enough to submit the Vendor Registration Form. It is necessary to provide all the required information. (Certificate of Company Registration, financial statement (last 3 years). 2
declaration 8. You mention ISO26000 in your document Annex J. But this standard is not an auditing standard, but a business practices guidance document. Do you intend companies to use SA8000 auditing tool, or our own internal GSCPequivalent tool? 9. Expansion on question 1. : ISO26000 is a guidance document not a standard to be audited against, for use by CSR managers and executives to build a CSR program for a business, and is not usually used by social auditors, so we should not expect the auditor to refer to this, as this would be confusing. The audit you refer to as CSR audit is a Social/Labour audit. The standards used for social audit are local laws and international conventions, or international best practices [you have supplied the UNHCR Code]. Can we park references to ISO26000 and just use a standard audit tool? We can provide examples that you can choose from. 10. Remediation of urgent issues revealed during audit - do you co-operate with the ILO Better Work / other UN agencies re remediation of Zero Tolerance issues, or issues of immediate risk (say, risk to life and limb, or harassment cases)? Have you identified support groups that can take on the issues immediately if found during the audit? Would the UNHCR observer handle this? Whom does the auditor call should an issue be revealed? Please provide a protocol for the auditor to follow. Although you state that your suppliers have signed a Framework Agreement, many suppliers typically don t understand local laws and how to control adherence to a Code of Conduct, and it is a challenging task. I expect to see a handful of ZTs pop up and a catalogue of Non-Conformances that need to be worked through as part of a Continuous Improvement program. Please refer to answer to question No 3. Please refer to answer to question No 3. The detailed standards per audit type are described in Annex J: International Standards and Requirements for Relief Items Manufacturing. These cases will be managed with UNHCR representative during the audit process. 11. Clarification re inclusion in the social audit of environmental elements: it s typical practice for social audit tools to include a short paperwork exercise of due As mentioned in answer to question No 1, Environmental management audit is not the focus of the current program, but could be quoted on segregated basis. Please provide 3
diligence check of governmentally-required inspections, which are related to environmental adherence with local law, e.g. if the unit is a wet-processing function, e.g. textile dyehouse, it would be required by local law in most countries to have a test of waste water into the local environment and/or review of waste water treatment, if there is any hazardous effluence. There are a small number of standard questions all social audit tools include, but they are only a fraction of the Environmental Management Systems (EMS) separate audit you are also requiring, so we are interested in tendering for the EMS and Social Audits. The audience question was not so clear. We will provide you with sample audit tools, so you can see this clearly. 12. Additional post-conference question: Applying a Final Factory Rating in the Audit Report - it is now best practice for the auditor to be removed from the process of stating acceptable or rejected to a factory team during audit. The role of the auditor is to assess whether a business complies with law/standards. The auditor could be harassed, if s/he is appointed the one to make such a decision. My advice to you is to allow the auditor to do their job, and the rating or evaluation to occur off-site, preferably by the UNHCR, after we submit the numerically-rated and final-approver audit report to you. Your rating system and the decision you make accordingly (whether or not to keep or cut a supplier) should be controlled by the UNHCR not the auditor individually, to avoid conflict-of-interest or any potential danger to the auditor. 13. Does the scope include audits at subsuppliers site? sample audit tools as indicated in answer to question No 1. UNHCR agree with your statement. It will not be necessary to state acceptance or rejection (pass or fail) of the audit. The auditor should prepare a summary of the audit report listing and describing the different types of nonconformities, which will be used during the audit closing meeting. Affirmative. In case the supplier has declared 2 factories / locations for manufacturing processes or items that are parts of a product, both factories will be audited. For instance if a supplier has the pots manufactured in one factory and cutlery done at another factory, both factories will be audited. 4
14. Can the credentials of a large single client with multiple sub suppliers under the Textile, Metal and Plastics sectors be repeated under the credentials list in Annexc C? 15. Audit Report to be signed by Auditor and witnesses. What do you mean by witnesses who, how many? Will Clobal Co-ordinator will also sign ref 6.1 a? 16. Will you share the UNHCR Supplier Factory audit tool? 17. Audit Report conclusion as Accepted or Rejected Any defined criteria for the same? Pl share. 18. Clause 4.4.1 Total how many credentials expected @ atleast 3 ref per country, industry sector, type of audit (4x3x4)? 19. Will emails from clients be sufficient as evidence of experience? 20. Is International Auditor mandatory as part of the audit team? Why? How International Auditor be relevant to local audits? 21. You mention ISO26000 in your document Annex J. But this standard is not an auditing standard, but a business practices guidance document. Do you intend companies to use SA8000 auditing tool, or our own internal GSCP-equivalent tool? 22. Can companies be accepted for part offer? e.g. social and environmental withour quality assurance systems? 23. Part 3 Page 5 of the TOR Particular emphasis shall be given to the relevant manufacturing processes, including the supply chain mapping and particularly for activities performed by subcontractors e.g. manufacturing of cutlery included in the kitchen sets, but not produced in the same It can. We recognize there may be an overlap in the references, as you may do the same work for the same client, for different industries and types of audit. If there is an international and a local auditor, both will need to sign the report and the summary report with the list and description of nonconformities. The witness is the UNHCR staff. The Global coordinator does not need to sign the report. Not for the moment. The UNHCR Supplier/Factory Audit Tool will be shared with the awarded suppliers. UNHCR reporting tool has an automatic calculation to recommend Accept or Reject a Factory. However, UNHCR is interested in receiving and reviewing the auditor service report and tools to jointly decide which toll is used during the audit process Please provide sufficient and relevant references that would allow assessing your credentials. The more evidence, the better. International auditor is mandatory. International auditor will support the integrity of the auditing process. Please refer to answer to questions No 9 and No 3. Regarding the tool you are invited to provide your own tool and report as part of the technical offer, point 5.4 (Business Case Scenarios) Correct. Please refer to question No. 1 However UNHCR would prefer a service provider that can cover all or most of our requirements. That is correct. The number of factories in Annex K already includes the subcontractors. 5
location as the pots or knitting and raising of blankets performed in different locations Does this mean that we will also need to do an audit of their subcontractor facilities in addition to the nominated supplier facilities? If so, how many such subcontractors do we envisage? 24. 3.1 Contract Working Schedule: UNHCR may request non-announced Factory Audits for specific reasons, for instance to detect child labour Does this mean that once we have submitted a final report indicating Factory Accepted or Rejected, we may still have to re-visit the factory for an audit, if required? 3.1 Contract Working Schedule: Regarding the timelines, UNHCR forecasts to have Cluster 1 Audit mission in Q3 2017, Cluster 2 in Q1 2018 and Cluster 3 in Q3 2018. We have about 28 factories planned as part of the above clusters, over a period of 1 year. The FA is for 5 years (3+1+1). Does this mean that we will continue such audits for new / upcoming suppliers over the 5 year period. Or are we expected to do annual audits of these 28 factories over a 5 year period? At the moment we do not foresee this. But it may happen. It may vary. The timelines are just a forecast. It may be that UNHCR will conduct additional tenders for new products and new factories will need to be audited. There are many variables. At this point we cannot say how many factories will be audited in each of the years throughout the 3 + 1 +1 years. 6