Amiqus: driving efficiency in public sector onboarding

Imagine finding the ideal candidate, only to lose them weeks later because the recruitment process took too long

In the public sector, pre-employment checks are essential. But when identity verification and compliance rely on manual systems, progress stalls. Start dates slip, pressure builds and critical roles remain unfilled. Ensuring accurate and thorough checks is essential - but so is keeping candidates engaged throughout the process. The challenge is delivering this balance at scale.

Amiqus makes it possible to achieve both, without compromise.

Recognising the impact of recruitment delays and increasing pressure on HR teams, the Scottish Government People Directorate approached CivTech with a Challenge to improve the pre-employment experience for civil service candidates.

In response, the Amiqus team adapted their existing digital platform to streamline the process. Candidates could complete identity and compliance checks online from any device, while HR teams tracked progress in real time. This streamlined approach sped up onboarding, reduced administrative work and maintained full compliance.

The Amiqus platform also proved critical during the COVID-19 pandemic. The NHS needed thousands of clinicians to return to work quickly, but still required essential identity, compliance and pre-employment checks - a process that would normally take up to three weeks.

In the middle of a global health crisis, that was too long.

With Amiqus, onboarding time dropped from a five-week average to two days – and often quicker than that. It enabled 16,000 pre-employment checks to be processed and 5,000 clinicians onboarded at speed.

Impact

• Time to complete checks: Onboarding dropped from a five week average to two days, often quicker than that

• Admin effort reduced: Few touch points, less document chasing and no manual follow-up

• Adoption/scale: Amiqus processed 16,000 pre-employment checks and enabledfaster, streamlined onboarding for 5000 clinicians

Lessons learnt

• Early engagement with the right stakeholders is vital. Amiqus went to great effort to understand the systems they would replace, built a shared view of what was possible, and took their clients along with them. This wasn’t simply a case of automation – but true innovation.

• Training and support are important: New technology only delivers value when teams have the confidence and know-how to use it. Amiqus and its clients worked hard to ensure the tech was both easy to use, and easy to learn.

• The public sector can innovate at speed: There’s a bit of an old myth that that says the public sector can’t move fast and can’t innovate. Consider that myth debunked.