Principal Officer competition 2022

There's an additional level for both Justice and DFA.

I've heard nothing about clearance yet.

I just got my mail from clearance. If you know of two people in this competition who were contacted about roles before today- then PAS are not following the order of merit

Good to hear it has started moving. @myk if you aren't a current civil servant, maybe it is a slightly longer route for your offer if you gave to go through clearance. Maybe the two who have already been offered were existing CSs or indeed they might have been offered roles within their own Departments. Did you hear which Dept you are being offered?

I’m not a current civil servant and I appreciate clearance is required which would delay recruitment of external candidates .

But if PAS are approaching current civil servants before they even ask for clearance for external members higher up the panel then they are not following the order of merit.

I haven't been offered a role, or been advised of a department yet. I assume that will only come when my clearance is complete.

Its quite possible for them to be following the correct order if they've approached 2 people. For a start, unless you're 2nd (and not joint 2nd) they could both be ahead of you (I know person who came first is existing civil servant).

Secondly, if there are e.g. 4 requests in from Govt departments and number 2 is a non civil servant, they may set in motion the top 4 being appointed. The fact that it may take a bit longer to do the admin for number 2 isn't them being skipped, they will get the job (assuming they pass clearance, and also assuming they take it, experience is that some from outside CS don't). If you think about it, it'd be inefficient to hold up the 3rd and 4th appointments pending clearance of number 2.

I'd relax, if you're in the top 2 or so you'll be appointed very shortly.

Also, I think PAS take groups of people together. So for example they might have started working in the first 5 on the panel at the same timr and have identified 5 posts for them. And then, those in the first 5 who's own Dept has tagged them will get the offer first as this is less admin for PAS etc. As an external person there is much more admin but I'd imagine the post is waiting for you. Hopefully this all moves smoothly for you and you get your proper offer very soon. I wonder if the next 5 will start being processed this week. Fingers crossed.

FYI I have been advised that anyone who is on the panel now will be invited to participate in the next PO Higher competition which is due to run before the end of year (as indicated in the briefing material for this competition). However, my own expectation is that a lot of serving and very experienced POs will apply and therefore be very stiff competition for anyone on this panel that opts to particiate.

Yes, if tagged by your home Department you wont be offered positions elsewhere. Generally, you would be consulted before you are tagged. If you definitely don't want to be tagged you could always take the initiative and let HR know that that is your position.

On that, grapevine told me someone in one department has been offered a post in another one, this surprised me as I would have thought her dept would have liked to keep her.

Does that mean she's definitely going to the new dept, or can they have it changed in agreement with their HR?

Again I didn't check into this much but I was told that "tagging" only means that when PAS come to your oom they will give your department the heads up that you are next for an offer. If the department don't have a vacancy then you are offered another department. Now I never checked this with PAS.. I was just offered this information by someone who knew I was on the panel. Does anyone actually know the details on it?

Or maybe they didn't want her at the PO level.

8 weeks? Are you on the 2019 panel or the 2022 panel?

How come you gave PAS your references 8 weeks ago when results only came out a month ago?

Wonder if numbers 6 to 10 will get offers this week??