This is an example of how pre-employment misconduct screening could work in an organisation.
How you implement the misconduct screening policies will depend on the size of your organisation.
The key priorities are:
You can choose when you’d like to screen candidates based on the role’s level of risk. It’s usually done at the preferred candidate stage.
In order to conduct misconduct screening, you will need to provide candidates with a declaration and consent form to fill out. You can use either of these documents, but we recommend using the statutory declaration and consent form where possible:
Key roles (e.g. hiring manager and independent consideration panel) and their responsibilities are defined in about misconduct screening.
Hiring manager
Non-executive roles
The hiring manager needs to make it clear that the preferred candidate may undergo pre-employment misconduct screening in:
Try not to frame the communication about pre-employment screening in a way that would discourage any candidate.
The hiring manager tells the recruitment team who their preferred candidate is after they’ve finished interviews.
Executive roles
The hiring manager needs to make it clear that the preferred candidate will be required to undergo pre-employment misconduct screening in:
Try to frame the communication about pre-employment screening in a way that recognises additional controls are necessitated due to factors such as the decision-making authority, financial delegation, system access and influence on culture settings that executives can exercise.
The hiring manager tells the recruitment team who their preferred candidate is after they’ve finished interviews.
Recruitment team or equivalent role that does these duties
The recruitment team or equivalent role sends the preferred candidate the forms they need to fill out.
The recruitment team is not the same as the hiring manager or the recruitment panel. The hiring manager and the recruitment panel are not involved in the pre-employment misconduct screening process.
Send the candidates this statutory declaration and consent form (DOCX 153KB). Make sure you modify the form so it's relevant to the role - executive or non-executive.
If a candidate can’t use the statutory declaration, they can use the misconduct declaration form (DOCX 137KB).
The candidate must send the forms back to the independent panel or recruitment team and not the hiring manager.
This helps prevent:
Recruitment team or independent consideration panel
The candidate should give you contact information for someone from their previous employer (e.g. a former manager, human resources or people and culture team).
If they don't, you may need to contact the recruitment team or equivalent from the candidate's current or former employers for the past 10 years.
If they’re not the right team, they’ll be able to put you in touch with who is.
Here are some examples of who is best to contact in a situation:
If you’re validating information from past or current Victorian Public Service (VPS) employers, contact the VPSC at [email protected] and they will give you the right contact.
Independent consideration panel
Before you validate a candidate’s declaration, be familiar with some of these types of misconduct or issues you may come across.
The candidate may declare they have been terminated due to misconduct, had substantiated findings of misconduct, or there may be an open misconduct investigation.
You will need to validate this with their previous employer/s to find out what kind of misconduct was involved, to assess the risk it poses to the role advertised.
You must give the candidate a chance to explain the adverse conduct history before making any decisions about whether to employ them or not.
Declarable associations are where a person has an association with a person or group whose alleged unlawful activity could reasonably be seen as increasing the risk of a conflict of interest (COI).
A declarable association is when:
It can be an actual, potential or perceived conflict of interest.
This declaration needs to be part of your pre-employment screening.
A candidate must declare these associations where they’re relevant to the inherent requirements of the role.
Access the declaration and management of conflict of interest form template (DOCX 45KB).
Declarable private interests are a candidate’s actual or perceived conflicts of interests.
This declaration needs to be part of your pre-employment screening.
A candidate must declare any interests that could improperly influence or be seen to influence how they perform in the role.
Access the declaration and management of private interests form template (DOCX 126KB).
If a candidate’s declaration contradicts what a current or former employer says, there may be a few reasons:
Before you decide whether to employ the candidate, you must let the candidate respond to the contradictory information from their previous employer.
If you’re satisfied the candidate hasn’t made a false declaration:
If you think the candidate has made a false declaration, seek legal advice on how to proceed.
Knowingly making a false statutory declaration is a criminal offence under the Oaths and Affirmations Act 2018.
Sometimes candidates or employers can’t disclose relevant information because of:
To comply with their obligations, candidates, current and former employers may not be able to give you all the information you need.
For example, a candidate may resolve a misconduct issue with a separation agreement or deed of release to agree they’ll leave their job. This agreement or deed of release would likely have a legally binding confidentiality obligation in it.
You need to be mindful of these obligations when conducting misconduct screening.
On the misconduct declaration form, a candidate may answer with ‘do not know/cannot answer’. To minimise the risk of a confidentiality or contract breach when you validate this, ask:
If the candidate answers “yes”, don’t ask them anything else about that matter.
You can’t deem a candidate unsuitable for a role based on a confidentiality obligation.
Base your decision on other information you have and the level of risk inherent in the role.
If you need to enter a separation agreement with an employee, think about what integrity risks this presents for future employers.
If you can’t avoid a separation agreement, you may want to word the agreement to permit the sharing of some information.
See the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissions’ Preventing and responding to workplace sexual harassment Guideline, pages 89 to 90, for guidance on tailoring the agreement, and if necessary, seek legal advice.
Regardless of where or how you source your candidates, they all must go through pre-employment screening.
This includes consultants, contractors or other non-direct hiring where you have used an external recruitment agency.
You must include the requirement for pre-employment screening in all hiring contracts if you’re not using the staffing services contract.
If you use third parties to run your recruitment services, they must implement a process in line with this policy.
Independent consideration panel
From 1 July 2025, the misconduct forms completed by all Victorian public service executive candidates should be validated irrespective of whether or not any misconduct has been declared.
Where a candidate has not declared any form of misconduct, employers should validate with:
Where a candidate has declared some form of misconduct, employers are expected to validate an applicant’s declaration with:
Validating the misconduct forms of non-executive candidates remains optional but strongly encouraged.
When contacting previous or current employers to undertake this validation, you may want to email them first to set up a time.
If you use the phone to validate information, it’s hard to verify the identity of the caller or stop the call from being overheard by a third party.
Think about how you can minimise the risk of this and protect the candidate’s sensitive and private information.
You also need to have a way to verify the identity of anyone who needs to release information to you. This includes the preferred candidate, current and former employers.
Some examples of risks here are:
Make all reasonable efforts to verify their identity and previous employment history.
You’ll need to explain the process and confirm the person you’re contacting has the authority to validate the candidate’s information.
We recommend you use the misconduct declaration validation form (DOCX 138KB). The form is a guide as to what information you need to collect.
You must:
To then validate the information, they can choose to:
Always remind the person you’re speaking with that their comments need to:
If someone hasn’t declared any history of misconduct, don’t take this at face value.
Your process must comply with the Information Privacy Principles and best practice records management. Consult the guidance published by the Public Records Office of Victoria guide (PDF, 1MB) to learn about the requirements for records retention that apply to you.
Any information provided to the independent consideration panel must never be sent to the hiring panel.
All the hiring panel needs to know is if a candidate is suitable for the role.
In some cases, it may be hard for you to validate a candidate’s declarations. This could be through poor record-keeping or processes.
If you can’t validate a record, base your decision to hire on the other information you have, taking a risk-based approach.
You need to record what parts of the candidate’s form you couldn’t validate and the potential risk this may have if you employ them.
This may include things like:
This is an optional step if you’re not satisfied you have received all the information you need to make an assessment.
Seek legal advice if you want to do this. The candidate will need to fill out more declarations and give you consent.
Independent consideration panel
An independent consideration panel:
Read more about how to respond to negative or incomplete history.