[LINK] Costly veil of secrecy descends over PS

[Jan Whitaker]

At 02:18 PM 28/05/2011, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>The security agency's budget for its first nine months is $16million.
>
>However, analysis of public tenders shows government agencies spent
>$51.7million over the past four years hiring outsiders to carry out
>security and police checks on staff.

The math works about about equal in cost.
51.7/4 = 15.6/yr
I guess one could argue that a department charged with vetting could 
be more consistent rather than the range of contractors outside the govt.??


>A Defence spokeswoman said this week that, as of Wednesday, the vetting
>agency had records of about 286,200 workers with up-to-date clearances.
>
>About 127,800 were military personnel and reservists, 103,400 were
>federal bureaucrats and 55,000 were contractors.
>
>But the spokeswoman said the data was incomplete, as several workplaces,
>particularly intelligence agencies, continued to do their own vetting.

There was also the story on one of the current affairs shows (ABC??) 
about the poor vetting procedures where the people doing the work 
were told to make up stuff to fill the blanks so they could get 
better throughput. Can't recall which department -- Defence???

Jan



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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