What happens when an applicant’s Police Check is flagged for further review?

A Nationally Co-ordinated Criminal History Check (National Police Check) that is flagged for further review is a system generated response that advises the relevant State or Territory Police Partner agency of a potential match.

The State and Territory Police Partner Agencies will then draw on relevant information to manually determine the following: 

• Not a match or;
• a confirmed match and release the police history information in accordance with current State or Territory legislation to National Crime Check.

If there is not a match

The police check will be released with a result of No Disclosable Court Outcomes to National Crime Check, who will then dispatch your police check immediately via your selected dispatch method.

If there is a confirmed match

The police check application then moves into the vetting stage.

Request for Further Information (RFI)

In some instances, the State or Territory Police Partner Agency may need additional information to assist in making a matching decision. To do this, they  may raise an RFI with National Crime Check.

The RFI will generally take the form of additional address details, photo ID or requesting an Applicant attend a police station to submit a fingerprint sample.

It is the responsibility of National Crime to ensure that RFIs are completed and to liaise with the Applicant to obtain the relevant information.

Vetting

Once a confirmed match has been determined, the Police Partner Agency undertakes vetting of the relevant Police History Information (PHI) held on its systems. Vetting involves applying relevant State or Territory legislation and/or policy to the PHI, to determine what can be released. The State or Territory Police Partner Agency also takes into account the category and purpose of the Police Check to determine the type and amount of information that is released. The Nationally Co-ordinated Criminal History Check then goes into the Final Vetting stage.

Final Vetting

The coordinating Police Partner Agency is responsible for reviewing the vetted results and applying its own State or Territory legislation/policy to determine what PHI will be released to National Crime Check.

Results released

A NCCHC result will either be:

• No Disclosable Court Outcomes (NDCO)

– There is no PHI that can be released to the submitting organisation

• Disclosable Court Outcomes (DCO)

– PHI exists that can be released to the submitting organisation. The PHI may include:

charges;

court convictions, including any penalty or sentence;

findings of guilt with no conviction;

court appearances;

good behaviour bonds or other court orders, and/or

pending matters awaiting court hearing.