Reply to: SC Clearance lost due to agency fault - any legal redress?

[BlackCountryContractor]

Spoke with someone from Computacenter Vetting Department and was told that they just checked that I had valid clearance, but did not transfer it. I was told I could still work without the clearance being transferred. Is this true?

Hi Cyper

I found personally that to be normal which I mentioned as theory earlier in the thread, transferring takes time and money and some areas of government don't even allow for SCs to be transferred out of their relevant departments due to caveats etc.

[northernladuk]

Spoke with someone from Computacenter Vetting Department and was told that they just checked that I had valid clearance, but did not transfer it. I was told I could still work without the clearance being transferred. Is this true?

You can as long as it isn't with delicate information. The problem is if the role required you to deal with that information. I'm not sure the vetting department will know much about the role.

The theory behind what they say could be true in some cases. Question is.. is it in your case? Dunno.

[CYPER]

Spoke with someone from Computacenter Vetting Department and was told that they just checked that I had valid clearance, but did not transfer it. I was told I could still work without the clearance being transferred. Is this true?

[Anonimouse]

Computacenters vetting department have issues identifying their elbows. They have contractors who have been on two projects for them which both required sc which ran consecutively over an 18 month period, but they are unable to move to project 3 due to clearance issues

[Lance]

Who is telling lies?

Sounds like they both are.

Computacenter can do the sponsorship themselves, on behalf of their clients. I guess that the guy in CC you talk to is an idiot, and has blamed the agency. And told the agency to agree or he'll be an arse with them.

Unless of course the agency is actually a full on SC sponsor consultancy setup, but that seems unlikely. To be a sponsor they need to be directly engaged with government or defence business or with a large supplier to government or defence. So HP are a sponsor as they look after various government departments and also private companies working in defence.

There's likely a lot more going on anyway as CC's framework agreements with the customers will be complex and the SC requirement will be stated in those.
Some roles will have SC required and others will not. EG. A Unix admin might not need it but a DBA would. Very few of the account managers at CC will understand the full ins and outs of it.

[SimonMac]

The 2nd role most definitely needed clearance and the client is blaming the agency for not doing the transfer.
I spoke with the agency and they couldn't give me a valid explanation as to why the transfer was no done, but profusely apologised for this.

Someone clearly messed up as I am 100% certain the 2 companies that I did work for, which the client has a contract with required an SC cleared engineer.

PS. So the client is blaming the agent, and the agent is protecting their customer relation by accepting the blame as it's easier for you to be pissed at the pimp (safe in the knowledge there is **** all that can come back to them except a pissed off contractor), then a break down between pimp and client.

[SimonMac]

Here are the exact words from the client, I just changed the identifying bits in bold:

Hi,

I’ve confirmed with our vetting team who have verified CYPER’s clearance was never transferred to Client. When this was requested by Agency at the time they were advised that the requestor would need to confirm the clearance transfer however this was not confirmed.

I read this as REQUESTOR (new client from Sept 2017 - Dec 2017) was supposed to ask for clearance to be transferred from Fujitsu but they didn't, this could have been for a variety of reasons, it being a short gig being one possible, but also the fact that if it's a big firm (like Fujistu for example) they might clear more people than they actually need, they might have assumed the role needed SC but in reality it didn't. They are also perfectly capable of putting non-SC people in roles that need SC, either by mistake or a cock up.

Long story short, **** all you an do about it, certainly not the agents fault, not yours either but tulip happens, move on and find your next gig.

[BlackCountryContractor]

Here are the exact words from the client, I just changed the identifying bits in bold:




Here are the exact words from the company that sponsored me for the clearance:




The 2nd role most definitely needed clearance and the client is blaming the agency for not doing the transfer.
I spoke with the agency and they couldn't give me a valid explanation as to why the transfer was no done, but profusely apologised for this.

Someone clearly messed up as I am 100% certain the 2 companies that I did work for, which the client has a contract with required an SC cleared engineer.

Crikey this a red herring of a problem.

I can only hypothesize the following:

Client 2 who you did work for, decided to instead just ride out the 12 months of remaining clearance time on your SC when you left Fujitsu in February 2017 and not bother to transfer it saving themselves money (They could have simply got vetting to call and check and validate that you had SC with Fujitsu and then just left it at that and got you on the project on september 2017 to December 2017)

If this was the case it still brings up a problem that client 2 failed to do due diligence on your SC if it had expired immediately after you had left Fujitsu but this a grey area as I only know one place that has come to mind which is Bank of England that immediately cancel contractors SCs who have left them (Bearing in mind this was only told to me by word of mouth of a former contractor who worked there) but other departments and companies just leave your SC to expire with the 12 months grace time.

[CYPER]

Ahh. So the client isn't a sponsor. Their customer is and it would be down to them. For both of them actually as they'd both need to do it.
Or is the client a large provider, like HP/DXC, who can sponsor people for their customers' sites?

Either way it's still f*** all to do with the agency.

I worked for Computacenter who pays the agency, who in turn pays me.
Computacenter got many contracts, but I worked on 2, where the clients were a big UK bank and a big UK car manufacturer.
Computacenter are saying the agency has messed the transfer.
The person who was responsible for the SC transfer no longer work there and another person from the agency apologised for messing it, so it seems they accept responsibility.
Who is telling lies?

[Lance]

Someone clearly messed up as I am 100% certain the 2 companies that I did work for, which the client has a contract with required an SC cleared engineer.

Ahh. So the client isn't a sponsor. Their customer is and it would be down to them. For both of them actually as they'd both need to do it.
Or is the client a large provider, like HP/DXC, who can sponsor people for their customers' sites?

Either way it's still f*** all to do with the agency.

[Lance]

agencies cannot do the transfer


Only a company who can sponsor for clearance can do the transfer. The client should know this.

[CYPER]

Quite unusual to hear agencies handling clearance normally would be the vetting unit of clientco who would be sorting out & authorizing the transfer to them of clearance.

Tbh we would need some more information as what occurred but as to regards to legal redress until we know more there would be in theory very little you can do (Suing for future loss of profits might an avenue but nearly everyone here likes to chop that suggestion down).

Here are the exact words from the client, I just changed the identifying bits in bold:

Hi,

I’ve confirmed with our vetting team who have verified CYPER’s clearance was never transferred to Client. When this was requested by Agency at the time they were advised that the requestor would need to confirm the clearance transfer however this was not confirmed.

No, you can't lose clearance as you only have it when in a role that requires it. By ending the role (I assume pre Sept 2017) you the clearance ended.

Moving to the new role, the agent will have zero to do with the transfer of clearance, you are barking up the wrong tree blaming them.

If there was a **** up it was with the second client, either they didn't need the SC for the role, or didn't do the proper work to transfer the clearance. Neither gives room for redress and you certainly can't claim loss of earnings as it will be impossible to prove.

Here are the exact words from the company that sponsored me for the clearance:

Hi xxx,

Thanks for your enquiry. Security clearances are only valid for 12 months after leaving Fujitsu.

Unfortunately, as you left Employer in February 2017, your clearance is therefore no longer valid and available for transfer.

Regards,

The 2nd role most definitely needed clearance and the client is blaming the agency for not doing the transfer.
I spoke with the agency and they couldn't give me a valid explanation as to why the transfer was no done, but profusely apologised for this.

Someone clearly messed up as I am 100% certain the 2 companies that I did work for, which the client has a contract with required an SC cleared engineer.

[northernladuk]

Is there anything that I can do as it is clearly the agency's fault and this has affected my earning potential.

Nope. HTH

[Lance]

Is there anything that I can do as it is clearly the agency's fault and this has affected my earning potential.

Not having SC doesn't really affect your earning potential. I've had it twice, and both times after I left I didn't find any roles that needed it so it expired.

Rates for SC cleared people are no higher either.

And if you've had it once, clients who need it will simply sponsor you again.

[SimonMac]

A recruitment agency offered me a contract with an SC clearance requirement. I accepted and worked from September to December 2017 for 2 end clients inside secure rooms/cages, where only people with clearance were allowed to enter. During that time I enquired my direct manager if my clearance was transferred and was always told it is OK.

Now I found out the recruitment agency did not confirm the clearance transfer and so I have worked there against and requirement and more importantly I lost the clearance.

Is there anything that I can do as it is clearly the agency's fault and this has affected my earning potential.

Cheers

No, you can't lose clearance as you only have it when in a role that requires it. By ending the role (I assume pre Sept 2017) you the clearance ended.

Moving to the new role, the agent will have zero to do with the transfer of clearance, you are barking up the wrong tree blaming them.

If there was a **** up it was with the second client, either they didn't need the SC for the role, or didn't do the proper work to transfer the clearance. Neither gives room for redress and you certainly can't claim loss of earnings as it will be impossible to prove.