Ministry of Justice pre employment checks question

[Auburngal]

Yesterday, after 10 months of being unemployed, I finally accepted an offer for a role for an admin officer for Ministry of Justice. I had to submit a form with 4 forms of ID, disclose my arrest for harassment - which resulted in a police caution back in 2002 etc.

Had a text just now from MoJ saying they are starting the pre employment checks and it says it can take up to 12 weeks! Could someone tell me please what is the average time between accepting offer and completion of the checks.

I am supposed to be going abroad late Sept - early Oct. That can be changed. As if the start date was up to and including the 1st Monday of Oct, I wouldn't be able to go on holiday as not allowed any time off for the first 10 weeks.

Also when will it be likely I get a better idea of start date?

All civil service checks typically take a long time and you will not be able to start discussing a start date until the checks have been completed. Also, the checks can, and at time do, take a lot longer than 12 weeks. It’s not common but you should be aware 12 weeks isn’t the max

I recently had to get CTC clearance and was told 12 weeks but I got it in under 3 weeks (over the Christmas period). It depends on whether the position is for a specific role or whether it was a general competition. If it’s a general competition then you might well be waiting for the full 12 weeks.

It really depends, if you've ever lived in London expect checks to take at least 12 weeks, most of ours at the moment are taking 6-10, some take a lot longer especially with previous offences, some need to go to a panel for consideration. I work in the MOJ

Tell them you have a holiday booked and woumd like to start on xdatex.

We did also get an email recently from recruitment saying there are delays in checks for people already waiting for them that will take them beyond their advertised wait times and we had to contact candidates, we lose a lot of people because of the delays tbh, they get other jobs especially in admin roles

Tell them your holiday dates and say is it possible to start after x date (which is less than the 12 weeks) even if the checks come back sooner? It seems to be a pretty flexible start if they really don't know if the checks will take 12 weeks or more or less. Just a friendly question, not a demand, is there anyone you could ring to ask and then if it sounds positive put it in writing.

What do you mean by general competition?
I will be working for the HMCTS (courts and tribunals) section for MoJ

@Auburngal general competition refers to an external competition that is not advertising for a specific titled role. So it may be that HMCTS simply need 100 AOs (for example). Usually general competitions will have a lot of applicants who have been successful and so the security clearance will normally take longer.

I contacted the financial advisor who deals with my private pension and my parents' financial matters for the countersignatory reference, which he was OK to do.

He got the form via e-mail today and will complete it today.

Sorry for bumping the thread.

I had an email today that my pre-employment checks have been completed successfully. Then await for the vacancy manager to contact me about start dates.

Any idea how long that will be?

Different civil service dept for me but I got my start date on the day my checks were complete and I started 2 months later.
Congratulations!

Got a call about 20 mins ago confirming the start date is 10th Nov

13 months of not working!!!