Step 3. Auditing your compliance
Objective
To conduct an audit which identifies whether your current and planned activities are permissable within the terms of your supplier licences.
Actions
Typical audits are undertaken by externals in order to achieve impartiality and objectivity. It may be useful to bring in another person to conduct or help with this audit (perhaps from the institution's legal support team). Discussion may also reveal additional information and insight.
This will be an easier task if Step1 and Step 2 have already been completed:
- Develop a table of suppliers vs. activities (see table in the example below).
- Analyse the highlighted licence terms within your contracts (Step 2) to understand which activities are permissable for each supplier, and populate the table. A traffic light system is a convenient way of recording this:
- Red: not permissible
- Amber: it is unclear, or there may be issues
- Green: permissible
Example
| |
Date of contract |
Point of contact |
Activity 1 |
Activity 2 |
Activity 3 |
| Supplier A |
2008 |
Joe Bloggs |
G |
G |
A |
| Supplier B |
1999 |
Jane Bloggs |
G |
A |
R |