Skills assessing authority (Assessor)
Occupation-specific bodies — VETASSESS, Trades Recognition Australia, Engineers Australia, ACECQA and others — appointed to assess skills for migration purposes.
Responsibilities
- Assess qualifications and employment experience against the nominated occupation
- Issue a skills assessment outcome valid for a defined period
A step performed by a body that is neither the regulator of the occupation nor the decision-maker on the visa, and which the applicant pays before knowing whether they will be sponsored.
The same structural observation applies here as to specialist medical colleges and to Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority: the assessment is a precondition set by government and performed by a body whose timeframes are not published as regulatory performance data and not audited as such.
One genuinely good design feature is worth recording, because this database is quick to note bad ones. A skills assessment is typically valid for three to four years and can be obtained before an applicant has an employer. It is one of very few steps in this database that can be completed speculatively and banked, which takes it off the critical path for anyone who plans ahead. That is the shape most of the reforms on this site are asking for, already implemented.
Where this body appears in a process
Every point at which Skills assessing authority can hold something up, and why.
| Process | Step | Why it waits | Clock | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skilled worker seeks permanent residence through the points test | Obtain a skills assessment assessment | queue | — | 90 |
| Employer sponsors a skilled worker — Skills in Demand visa | Skills assessment assessment | queue | — | 90 |