Audit Objectives

Just as there are different types of sustainability audits, there are different types of objectives required for management system audits.  Importantly, an organization needs both audit program objectives and specific objectives to guide the conduct of each individual audit.  Although the audit program objectives and individual audit objectives are related, they are not necessarily identical.
It is important to remember that an audit and an audit program are not the same thing.  An audit is a “systematic, independent and documented process for obtaining audit evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which audit criteria are fulfilled”.  An audit program is “set of one or more audits planned for a specific time frame and directed toward a specific purpose”.  (Definitions from ISO 19011:2002)
OHSAS 18001 requires that an audit program be established.
An audit program involves more than just doing audits every once and a while.  It requires audit planning and it requires the creation of audit procedures.  As set out in the note to the definition in ISO 19011 –  an audit program includes “all activities necessary for planning, organizing and conducting the audits”.