Professor Anthony Glees Dr Julian Richards University of ... - PCG

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On at least one of the major job-boards (Jobserve) insertion of the correctwording („should hold or be prepared to undergo security clearance‟) requires asingle box to be ticked. In other words, it has been automated so that theagencies need do no more than tick the one box. The speed of automatic siftingwould indicate that in some cases the spirit of the guidelines is simply not beingfollowed.In the discussion at the November 2010 roundtable, it was clear that thegovernment was aware that current procedures were seen as a barrier byfreelance contactors. One freelance software developer explained how afterfifteen years of work, with a variety of security clearances, he has seen how thedemand for them can skew the market. Those who don‟t have one find it verydifficult to acquire and those who do make this a prime feature of theirapplication because they know this is the employment agencies in this field arelooking for. Indeed, rather than looking for contracts requiring specific IT skills(e.g Unix, Perl) the search is for „security clearance‟ or „developed vetting‟because those will be the terms that the advertisements will contain. Naturally,someone with these clearances will not find it easy to suggest that those withoutthem should be equally eligible but it would certainly drive costs down if thatwere the case. Similarly, because those doing this kind of work are a small pool,those outside it will find it very difficult to break in because the employmentagencies will not be interested in them. Another example was provided by anindependent programme manager, someone who in 2003 was working for theMoD on what is now the Atlas Programme. Having identified potential faults in ithe found that when the time came for a contractor to work to rectify them hewas not allowed to apply because his clearance had lapsed. He was told thatwithout clearance he could not apply to address something that he had himselfdesigned.A further example of the problem was provided by the Recruitment andEmployment Confederation (REC) who have found that whatever the policymight be, in practice employment agencies take their brief from their42
commissioning clients (employers, local government) who will demand CRBchecks and so forth. The policy may be understood but if the brief that has beengiven requires a quick start it is plain what the agencies will do. It is how thepolicy is transmitted to the front line, the line managers who take the bookingsthat matters. The speed of the system is plainly also now a factor. Areemployers prepared to wait for their contractors to be cleared?It was significant that strong and convincing anecdotal evidence of blacklistingby recruitment agencies does appear to exist. One contractor was told by asenior member of a recruitment agency that if a contractor were to challenge arequest for specific information from them, the agency would no longer deal withthem. Another, who was a Commonwealth nationality, had experience of beingasked whether they possessed security clearance, and if the answer was in thenegative, that was the end of it. It had also been suggested that it wasnecessary to be a British-born national for some contracts. All this had takenplace within the environment presented by data protection measures.At the same time, there was further anecdotal evidence to suggest thatcontractors who might refuse to be vetted were a tiny minority. Rather, theproblem was that those willing to be vetted had nonetheless been screened outby recruitment agencies. It was also the case that greater professionalism on thepart of recruiting agencies was now properly being asked for. Those agencyrepresentatives present at the November 2010 roundtable stressed robustly thatthey are keen to break the cycle and to prevent clearances being asked for if todo so is inappropriate. Blacklisting contravenes regulations and agencies‟ codesof practice. They run a complaints system and deal with several hundredcomplaints each year which are investigated. They take this process seriouslyand it could be that better publication of complaints procedures is nowwarranted. Its purpose, however, is not to rebuff the REC or its members but toindicate how contractors and recruitment agencies can best work together.Complaints might identify a single consultant who may be erring or who doesnot understand exactly what is required. Training must be preferable to askingpeople to leave but the latter would be done in extreme case. There is a43
Page 10: a level playing field. If present e
Page 13: equired to achieve this desirable g
Page 16 and 17: have exactly the expertise that gov
Page 18 and 19: We are satisfied, as we say, that i
Page 21 and 22: contract (government end-user, recr
Page 23 and 24: The main points are:• More than t
Page 25 and 26: containing an inherent conflict of
Page 27 and 28: In general, we recommend that• In
Page 29 and 30: • PCG acts as intermediary betwee
Page 31 and 32: government departments, and via the
Page 33: One of the most important points to
Page 36 and 37: articulation of government policy i
Page 38 and 39: conducting the first level of check
Page 40 and 41: Of course, perception and reality a
Page 44 and 45: eadiness to raise the bar on profes
Page 46 and 47: Michael Shryane at the Cabinet Offi
Page 48 and 49: commercial worlds were increasingly
Page 52 and 53: with the Data Protection Act. The D
Page 54 and 55: The DVA would forward lists of comp
Page 56 and 57: Second, there is a question of reso
Page 58 and 59: addressing all of these coherently.
Page 60 and 61: crime in many parts of the world fi
Page 62 and 63: concerned with the potential indivi
Page 64 and 65: of risk. As for „transparency‟

Professor Anthony Glees Dr Julian Richards University of ... - PCG

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