Public sector hiring has to be fair and be seen to be fair. Unstructured screening fails the second test even when it passes the first, because there is nothing to show anyone who asks.

Nordstat runs recruitment for a regional public body covering several departments, from planning to social services, each publishing its own vacancies under the same procurement rules. A hiring decision here can be challenged formally, and the challenge has to be answered with something more than a manager’s word.

Fairness you cannot demonstrate

Nordstat’s process was careful. It was also almost entirely undocumented below the interview stage, which meant a challenge to a shortlist could only be answered with an assurance.

An assurance is not a defence. For a public body it is not really an answer either. A rejected applicant asking why they were screened out was told, in effect, to trust that the process had been fair, with nothing written down to show them.

Across the body’s departments, several hundred vacancies open each year. Many require statutory qualifications that have to be checked consistently, not on a hunch.

Structure that can be published

Nordstat uses Yardstick Agents to run every application through the same declared criteria, producing a trail that can be shown to a candidate, an auditor or a tribunal.

The criteria are published with the vacancy, which changes what the process is for. Applicants know what is being assessed before they apply, and the assessment is against that and nothing else. Statutory requirements — a licence, a qualification, a clearance — are checked first and recorded as met or not met, before the softer criteria are scored at all.

Every score carries the specific answer or document it was based on, so a challenge can be answered by pointing at the evidence rather than restating a conclusion.

The decision stays with an officer

Screening is structured; deciding is not automated. A named officer signs each shortlist and can add or remove a candidate, with the reason recorded next to the name. Nothing is screened out without that record, and a person looks at every application that reaches a shortlist.

Fairness that holds up to a challenge

Since launch, 0 shortlists have been overturned on challenge, out of a small but real number of formal queries the process has faced. Where a candidate has asked why they were screened out, the answer has come from the recorded criteria rather than a fresh account written for the occasion.

All vacancies now carry criteria published in advance: 100% of postings across the body’s departments state what is being assessed before applications open. Three challenges have so far been answered directly from the record, without a manager needing to reconstruct their reasoning from memory.

Statutory checks are still confirmed by a named officer by hand, on the view that a licence or clearance is worth a human look rather than a database match alone.

Publishing criteria for promotions too

Nordstat is extending published criteria to internal promotions, which face a similar fairness test from staff rather than from external applicants.