Security vetting queue for public servants a 'black box': IGIS Christopher Jessup

Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Christopher Jessup said his oversight agency was struggling to fill technical roles as promising applicants are lost during the vetting process.

Dr Jessup's remarks come as the nation faces a critical skills shortage, with companies and governments struggling to fill analytical and information technology roles.

In a senate estimates hearing on Friday morning, Dr Jessup said a 12-month wait time was a "good outcome" for the top vetting check but most of the watchdog's recruits expected an 18-month minimum.

And there was little transparency as to when a staff member's security clearance could be completed, he added.

"It is sort of a black box, actually, or sometimes referred to as a pipeline," Dr Jessup said.

"We put people in at the front end of the pipeline, and we wait for them to come out the other end."

The small national security oversight body has funding for 57 employees but Dr Jessup said it had struggled to reach its full staffing limit, with levels remaining in the high 40s.

While the IGIS had been fortunate those who had been subject to the long process struck through it, the high demand for these skills meant it was often a tough sell.

"The issues that we find with all staff, particularly those with special skills, is that during the period of that positive vetting, they get an interest in doing something else with somebody else, or they get offered another job, and they just disappear out of the pipeline," Dr Jessup said.

"We're at a much greater risk of losing people when they happen to be for example, a specialist in IT, or ... someone with accountancy skills, because they are in high demand. We are not the only people looking for them."

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The inspector-general, who was appointed in early 2021, said his own dealings with the central vetting agency had been particularly onerous.

"Mercifully, most of the people we take on are quite young, but someone of my age," he said.

"I had to go back and look through about ... half-a-dozen passports and find out every country I've ever been to and various things like that.

"Security vetting at the positive security level is very, very involved."

Earlier this year, a spokesperson for Australian Government Security Vetting Agency confirmed it expected more than 70,000 clearances would be processed last financial year - an increase of nearly 15 per cent on the previous year.

The spike in applications was driven by the defence industry as well as non-defence agencies, the spokesperson said.

The vetting agency, long marred by backlogs since its inception in 2010, has struggled to entirely reduce wait times for its clearance process, failing to fully meet any of its time targets in its last annual report.