Role-based risk assessment

All roles have some level of mandatory screening. The level of additional screening needed depends on the organisational context and role being filled.

All Victorian public sector organisations should already have risk-management processes in place. These processes can be applied to pre-employment screening.

It’s important to consider the risks associated with each role and then decide what screening is required to manage them.

To help illustrate how this can be done, we’ve taken a summary of the roles and functions that could be considered low, medium or high-risk from the Strengthening Employment Screening Practices in the NSW Public Sector (2018) report.

Risk categories

• Open allClose all

• Decision-making authority

  Low risk

  • junior employees or employees who follow strict procedures

  Medium risk

  • contract and people managers

  High risk

  • executives and senior managers
  • key process owners (finance, payroll, security, procurement)

• Financial delegation or function

  Low risk

  • employees with no delegation or financial function

  Medium risk

  • employees with modest financial delegation
  • employees with purchase cards or corporate credit cards

  High risk

  • employees with significant financial delegation

• Job requirements

  Low risk

  • roles that don’t require evidence of formal qualifications

  Medium risk

  • formal qualifications are desirable but aren’t critical to the role
  • roles that require a valid driver’s license

  High risk

  • relevant qualifications or licenses are mandatory – for example, medical or technical roles that require registration

• System access

  Low risk

  • employees with no access

  Medium risk

  • employees with access to secure systems or sensitive information

  High risk

  • system administrators or master users

• Contact with community members or vulnerable client groups

  Low risk

  • employees with no external contact

  Medium risk

  • employees who have contact with the general public, clients or stakeholders

  High risk

  Employees who have contact with:

  • vulnerable clients
  • high-level or senior stakeholders and clients
  • commercial contractors

• Access to significant assets or resources

  Low risk

  • employees with no access

  Medium risk

  • employees with limited access – for example, executive assistants who support people with significant access

  High risk

  • employees with significant access

Screening requirements based on role-based risk assessment

We’ve put together a simple example of how public organisations can use risk categories to help them decide what pre-employment screening checks are required.

You can use this in combination with our list of pre-employment screening types.

In this example, a community-based organisation is trying to decide what screening checks will be needed for a manager-level role.

Example role description

We’re looking for a junior manager to work in a client-facing role. The successful candidate will have a moderate level of financial delegation, some decision-making power and access to sensitive information about people who use our services.

Risk categories

Apply risk levels to the risk categories that apply. The role is considered high-risk if it has at least one high-risk element.

Assign a risk level to the risk categories that apply:

• decision-making authority – medium
• contact with vulnerable clients – high
• finance delegation – medium
• system access – high
• access to significant assets – medium
• job requirements – medium

Pre-employment screening required

Mandatory screening

1. pre-employment misconduct screening
2. identity checks
3. reference checks to confirm resume details and integrity
4. police check

Additional risk-based screening

1. directorship search of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) database and a bankruptcy check
2. conflict of interest and personal association delegation
3. working with children check
4. other applicable qualification checks from an accredited institution