David Jull (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the committee’s report entitled Review of administration and expenditure: Australian Intelligence Community, Number 4—Recruitment and training.

Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.

I present the first review by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security of the administration and expenditure of the six intelligence agencies conducted under section 29 of the Intelligence Services Act 2005. Since December 2005, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has had an obligation to review the administration and expenditure, including the annual financial statements, of DIGO, ONA and DIO in addition to those of ASIO, ASIS and DSD, which were previously reviewed under section 29 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001.

The committee previously resolved that at least once a parliament it would review broadly the administration and expenditure of the agencies, and in intervening years it narrows its focus to review specific matters of administration and expenditure.

Over the last four to five years, the Australian intelligence and security agencies have been undergoing rapid expansion in terms of increasing staff numbers and managing increasing budgets. The review being reported on today examined the recruitment and training strategies of the six intelligence and security agencies in light of that expansion.

Much of the evidence taken by the committee at hearings and from submissions was of a classified nature and cannot be tabled in parliament. However, as much information as can be publicly reported, including agency evidence, has been included in this report. 

An expanded, classified report has been forwarded to ministers and the heads of the intelligence agencies. It reports in detail on evidence heard by the committee regarding the recruitment and training strategies and initiatives of each agency.

The review was not publicly advertised. Detailed submissions were sought and received from each intelligence and security agency and, additionally, letters inviting submissions were sent to a number of individuals and organisations which have had associations with the intelligence services or have had an academic interest in intelligence matters. Only two further submissions were received as a result.

The committee took evidence in private hearings from the agency heads and two non-agency individuals and, during the course of the inquiry, the committee met with some trainees during inspections which were conducted at various intelligence facilities.

The committee notes that as the evidence taken in this inquiry was largely confined to the agencies themselves, the committee’s perspective on recruitment and training in the Australian intelligence community might be limited by the narrowness of its evidence base.

The committee heard that it has been and continues to be a real challenge for agencies to find large numbers of suitable new recruits in a very tight marketplace. Once recruited, agencies must devote a lot of time and resources to ensure that new recruits are adequately trained to maintain existing high agency standards.

Agencies described to the committee a range of initiatives and strategies which they are devising and implementing to meet staffing targets and to retain staff. They have had to rethink and refine their recruiting strategies.

The committee was impressed by the range of strategies and initiatives that agencies have devised to meet recruiting goals and to recruit the right people for the agency’s needs while being mindful that they must not become so absorbed in recruitment and training that they risk missing important developments in their operational fields.

The committee found that agencies are making a substantial effort to review, develop and refine their training to keep it up to date and appropriate to the work of the agency in order to create a highly skilled workforce.

The two areas within recruitment and training which were found to be particularly problematic for agencies are employing, training and retaining linguists and having new staff security-cleared in a reasonable time frame. These two areas were examined by the committee in detail.

The committee is satisfied that, in spite of the complexity of the issues, the agencies are finding ways to overcome the difficulties to successfully grow while maintaining their high standards. The committee found no serious problems within the agencies regarding recruitment and training at this time.

In conclusion, I would like to thank all the member agencies of the Australian intelligence community for their cooperation with the committee during this review. I would also like to thank members of the committee and our secretariat, who have undertaken their duties in a bipartisan fashion and who recognise the need to put the national interest and effective parliamentary scrutiny of highly sensitive matters before any partisan political interests. The work of the committee continually presents the members with the challenge of reconciling the demands of national security with parliamentary and public scrutiny. I recommend the report to the House.

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in the absence of the Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, the member for Holt, who is unavoidably away from the parliament due to illness. Previous reports of this committee have drawn attention to the concern the committee had that, if an agency expanded too fast, that could have significant long-term negative consequences, both by reason of the recruitment of the wrong kind of staff and the distraction from the operational priorities of the organisation. However, I think we on the committee are broadly satisfied that intelligent responses have been undertaken, notwithstanding the very large expansion that has been undertaken. But, as the chair has indicated, this is not without its problems, in particular in language recruitment. Our report details a wide range of strategies that are being employed to try and minimise the difficulties that are associated with a large expansion of recruitment and the need to expand training programs.

One of the difficulties that we identified goes to the length of time after a person puts themselves forward for potential employment within the agencies, as there needs to be a very careful and appropriate interview mechanism and then security screening. We would all expect that those intelligence agencies employ rigorous means to make certain that they are not compromised through this period of large expansion. Of course, each of those agencies has a very large interest in making certain that those recruits will be able to play an ongoing role into the future in a way which is consistent with community expectations and that we are not recruiting the wrong kind of people into those agencies simply because of the exigencies of current demand.

I think it is fair to say that we are satisfied across the committee that those concerns that were expressed earlier by this committee and also by the Flood inquiry are being managed as carefully as could be, although there are some considerable losses, we are told, between the time that people are initially selected for potential recruitment and the time that they are offered employment, due to these extended examinations that occur with respect to security clearance and appropriate interview. That issue has involved a blow-out in the time for security clearances. The committee spent some time looking at the long trail time that was involved in some of these instances. We are satisfied that efforts are being made to minimise that.

There is one issue that I should reflect on that the committee reported on at paragraphs 2.46 and 2.47 and then addressed in recommendation 2. We ask the agencies to report every year on the backlog and the methods being used to address security clearance backlogs, and we also report on the fact that there is, at least within some of the agencies, an arrangement that has been entered into and formalised between agencies to accept those who have been security cleared—positively vetted—so that they can transfer from agency to agency within the Australian intelligence community. For example, at 2.47 we note that recently an MOU has been formalised amongst some of the agencies to accept positively vetted security clearances issued by other agencies, and we note that the defence department agencies recognise other agencies’ positive vets and that ASIS now accepts other agencies’ positive vets.

I think it reflects the view of our committee that the group within the Australian intelligence community that specifically meets to deal with security standards should continue to pursue the issue of reciprocity of clearances by all agencies within the community, because it is a complete waste of time and resources if we have a standardised template for security clearance that is recognised by most but not all of the agencies. It also impedes career development and cross-agency transfer and probably impedes the most effective utilisation of our intelligence resources. So we would urge that upon the intelligence community. (Time expired)

Phillip Barresi (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for statements on this report has expired.