In a recent case an employer found itself in hot water, short of money, and without a major client, after failing to carry out a criminal record vetting check.

The business required all staff to be vetted for criminal convictions before being placed in their clients’ workplaces. Staff worked largely unsupervised, out of hours, and so needed to be carefully screened.

The staff member taken on to carry out this work was herself supposed to be vetted but was not, due to an oversight by her manager. This oversight was not picked up due to a lack of any check that the checks had been done.  It was later discovered that she had fraud convictions and had been taking funds from the business, as well by claiming for expenses not incurred.

In addition the business lost the work of their major client due to the unchecked employee having been on the premises in breach of their service agreement.

If you require police vetting checks then you need to have a system to ensure that all staff undergo the checks.  A failure can be very costly. If you need assistance with what you can ask staff at the employment interview about prior convictions, and when you can require consent to a criminal records check, give me a call on (04) 4736 850.