Employment Vetting Officer

Employment Vetting Officer

Fixed Term, Full Time

£26,090 to £30,693 per annum

Location: Chelmsford

Closing Date: 17th June 2025

Please note this vacancy is available as a fixed term contract or secondment opportunity for up to 6 months

The Opportunity

Talent and Resourcing sits within the People, Policy, Economy and Public Health function at Essex County Council (ECC). Talent and Resourcing delivers a high standard of service to both ECC employees and to external customers, with our employees and customers at the heart of what we do. Working collaboratively across the Organisation, Talent and Resourcing is responsible for all people payments, resourcing, employee casework, first line HR queries, pre-employment vetting and business development of external services to our partners

The Employment Vetting Officer (EVO) will be responsible for undertaking all pre-employment vetting checks on new joiners to ECC and our external customers and are fully compliant to start work in their role. They will ensure clearances are completes efficiently, to full safeguarding requirements whilst ensuring hiring managers and candidates have exemplary communication throughout the vetting journey. The EVO will be the subject matter expert on vetting legislation and ECC policy and be confident in working to clear legal requirements.

Accountabilities

• Develop a clear understanding of ECC policy and key legislative guidance (ex. DfE, Social Work England, OFSTED, Keeping Children safe in Education) so as to possess a clear grasp of the required pre-employment vetting for each candidate.
• Provide technical advice and guidance to hiring managers on required pre-employment vetting requirements, including where required bespoke checks which are expected in regulated sectors such as Social Work, education & legal services.
• Obtaining required checks such as employment references, DBS checks, right to work, vaccination etc, as is required for each role to meet statutory and policy requirements.
• Review all received checks, to ensure they meet the required standards and that cumulatively they raise no concerns for follow up, referring cases where needed for safeguarding review, operating within the requirements of the rehabilitation of offender's act.
• Using technology, undertake all required clearances for new starters to ECC and our partner customers. Working at pace and organising multiple workstreams to ensure clearances are chased pro-actively and completed within agreed timescales.
• Ensuring that candidates and managers are regularly kept up to date on progress of clearances, including expected delays and expectation management.
• Providing subject matter expertise on additional checks or complex decisions need to be made regarding vetting, ensuring that the safeguarding principles of the organisation are adhered to, without exception.
• Best in class candidate and hiring manager care, with all emails responded to within 24 hours of receipt. Pro-actively moving the candidate through the vetting process, chasing promptly when require via telephone and email and engaging hiring managers quickly when a candidate is not responding promptly.
• Where needed, with the appropriate consideration, adjusting their approach to facilitate required changes to the specific situation, without compromising on safeguarding but ensuring a quick process for all involved.
• Seeing cases through to completion including issuing of contract, accurate integration to payroll systems and receipt of satisfactory candidate and hiring manager survey responses at the closure of each case.
• Specific individual and shared targets and objectives are defined annually within the performance management framework.

The Experience You Will Bring

• Educated to RQF Level 3 or equivalent by experience.
• Understanding of employment and vetting legislation, in both regulated and non-regulated environments.
• A keen understanding and experience of the practical application of regulated guidance as set out by the Department for Education, Social Work England, Care Quality Commission, Office for Standards in Education, central government, Solicitors Regulatory Authority and Disclosure and Barring.
• Thorough understanding of the keeping children safe in education act and the rehabilitation of offenders act.
• Able to communicate complex technical legislative guidance to candidates and hiring managers in a simple way that is easy to understand.
• Proficient IT skills, MS Word and MS Excel are essential.
• Highly motivated with excellent attention to detail, a result orientated approach and continually seeking to improve. Ability to prioritise own workload and meet organisational deadlines.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with experience of dealing with customer queries and a track record of providing exceptional customer service.
• Evidence of building effective working relationships with colleagues and customers.