3 May 2002
Prime Minister and Minister in charge of the Security Intelligence Service, Helen Clark, said today that the Security Intelligence Service is advertising again for career intelligence officers.

Helen Clark said that the Service had advertised for officers last year, its first public advertisement in 20 years. There was a strong response, with over 850 applications, and the Service was able to fill its vacancies with high quality candidates.

Helen Clark said that on 30 January extra funding had been announced for counter-terrorism activities. She said with its share of the additional funding, the SIS would be able to increase its staff numbers over time, probably to around 140. That would follow a long period of reduction, from the peak of 159 in 1982/83 to about 110 before 11 September 2001.

“I welcome the decision of the Director of the SIS to advertise openly for staff. The Service needs to tap into the widest pool of available talent in order to obtain staff of the highest quality. The decision to advertise is also consistent with the greater openess about the Service which the Director and I are pursuing.

“While there will always be limits for security reasons on what can be said publicly about security intelligence work, in my view moves like this normalisation of recruitment procedures are good for the Service and are in the public interest,” Helen Clark said.

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