Significant changes in Public Sector Hiring are afoot: Are you ready?

If you recruit for the public sector, then you need to be aware of changes that have just occurred. In short, you cannot just simply recommend the best candidate for job, based on merit, anymore. You now need to consider the Candidate’s ‘suitability’ before they are offered a job.

Let that sink in. Recruitment needs to factor in competence and character.

The scope of this includes Departmental public servants, employees and contractors of State Owned Enterprises, Statutory Authorities, Corporate Commonwealth Entities or other similar Agencies which are governed by the Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF). Personnel security is one element of good protective security management. Effective personnel security is an essential risk mitigation tool to the threat posed by malicious trusted insiders and to stop someone like that going down the critical path that leads to a hostile act.

To achieve the PSPF personnel security outcome, each entity (and by extension, external recruitment service providers) need to ensure its employees and contractors are suitable to access Australian Government resources and meet an appropriate standard of integrity and honesty.

Hint: A ‘clean’ national police history check is not an appropriate standard of integrity and honesty.

The PSPF was changed in late 2018 to strengthen this aspect of recruiting. The requirement applies to all personnel; this includes security cleared and non-security cleared personnel, contractors and others who will have access to Australian Government resources. This is a ground changer and potentially impacts every single hiring decision you make.

Requirement 1.c. states that “pre-employment screening must obtain assurances of a person’s suitability”.
This requirement cannot be achieved without an integrity check. Does your existing background suitability check meet these standards?

The Attorney-General’s Department (who authored the PSPF) also recommends that you should conduct and finalise screening after the conclusion of the merit selection process but prior to an offer of employment or contract.

Then the PSPF ‘doubles down’ on the significance and importance of the role of the suitability screening process and that it is the Entity and Agency who holds carriage and responsibility for it being done.

To illustrate, the Attorney-General’s Department put it this way: the suitability screening process that is completed “prior to engagement is particularly important for positions that have been identified as requiring a security clearance. If an individual is found to be unsuitable as part of the pre-employment and entity-specific screening, entities must not seek a security clearance for the individual.” Why? One reason might be if the Candidate’s suitability is adverse at the time of recruitment, then don’t clog up AGSVA’s limited resources by sending inevitable complex cases to them. The ANAO noted that it takes an average of 792 days to reach a determination for one level of clearance – that is a long time!

Q. We don’t need security clearances, so is this more like a civilian suitability clearance?

Yes. We have on standby, qualified, experienced suitability experts, skilled in the art of vetting, ready to speak to your candidate, one-on-one for (up to) a few hours. The interview canvases all the dimensions that matter, analyses any adverse information using the non-discriminatory, unbiased Whole-of-Person protocol and provides a suitability assessment recommendation: Favourable, Caution, Adverse.

Conclusion:
Cleard Life Vetting Agency’s Vetting As A Service Platform has been designed for this exact scenario.

We can assist you with your suitability screening needs for all your security cleared and non-security cleared personnel. Get in touch today.

For more info: https://www.cleard.life/public-sector.html