Contractors sometimes lose the opportunity to secure a government contract because the department in question demands that bidders already have security clearance.
The PCG recently organised a high-level roundtable meeting on the subject and the REC was there to fight the recruitment industry’s corner.
Cabinet Office senior officials were present at the meeting as well as recruiters, security experts and contractors. The discussions mainly concentrated on the role agencies play in implementing the Government’s security requirements when placing contractors in sectors such as interim management and technology.
The heart of the debate surrounded the practice whereby contractors need to have existing clearance before they are considered for assignments. The REC has regularly spoken to the PCG and the Cabinet Office about this and expressed their view that this requirement should not be automatically imposed. However, this cannot necessarily be blamed on recruiters as they are simply following the brief they received from their client.
Tom Hadley from the REC commented that the issue of security clearance is a sensitive area and the Confederation will continue to raise awareness that clearance should not be an automatic pre-requisite. Recruiters are currently stuck in a Catch 22 situation and this needs to be rectified.
The REC will carry on working with the Cabinet Office and the PCG to set out the right balance between opportunities for contractors and effective vetting procedures. Hadley says that the way forward is to speed up the security checking processes and to continue dialogue with all interested parties.
Feedback from the event will be collated and a set of recommendations sent to the Government.
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