Enhanced Audit Guidance for Third-Party Verification of FSA

Providing more clarity, consistency and structure for FSA approved auditors and their clients

BRUSSELS 17, May 2018 – SAI Platform is introducing a set of materials to provide guidance to audit companies and auditors as well as to Farm Management Groups (FMGs) and individual farmers that want to have their FSA self-assessments third-party verified. This guidance is applicable to all FSA audits that will take place from June 1^st, 2018.

All audit guidance materials are now available for download in the Toolbox on the FSA Tool website and include:

FSA Verification Guide for FMGs

Clarification note on FMGs

FSA Verification Guide for Stand Alone Farms

FSA Audit control points

SAI Platform is confident that the new guidance documents mark a significant evolution from the existing materials. The scope of the improvements is largely focussed on providing more structure and clarification to users, as well as to specifying terminology and control points to improve understanding of required evidence. This will simplify the audit process, lead to improved levels of assurance and greater consistency between FSA audits around the globe.

The review and improvement of the FSA audit guidance materials would not have been possible without the support of FSA users at all levels in the supply chain, as well as several FSA approved audit companies. SAI Platform is grateful for this input and remains open to further suggestions.

FSA approved audit companies will be informed about the changes in more detail in a separate communication, which is available on request.