Company wont give employees their Gas Safe Certifcate, any adivce?

missk9

Hi there, I have come here to see if anyone can offer any advice as we are at our wits end.

My partner has spent the last 18 months training as a plumber for a large London company, working as a plumbers mate and the company was collecting all the evidence he needed to apply for his GasSafe Certificate.
It was not just him on the books for this, there was a group of 30 before him and after him all doing the same role, working for apprentice pay with the belief that they were all to be receiving their Gas Safe certificates as and when they were ready.
They have now been told the correct forms have been sent off etc and they will be receiving their Certificates ASAP.. this was now almost 11 months ago. With constant calls and meetings arranged for each 30 to arrive and be presented with this certificate, each time they all make effort to go to the workplace they are told "sorry its not arrived yet and will be here next week" this same story has been told to them many many times.
Eventually the company said they can have their certificates but each need to pay £90 for them.. fine no problem we said, as we just want it now, but still nothing has come of it.
I may have got a few details wrong as I am writing this on behalf of my partner but you get the gist.
Even though he has his employment contract, there is nothing about the certificate in it.
Is there anyone we can go to for help? Has anyone had any experience of this? Should we just give up?

saintjammyswine

Has he contacted the awarding body for the exams he has taken? Changes in the rules last year(maybe 2 years ago) mean that the certificates, although still the property of the awarding body, should go to the candidate, regardless of who paid for them. We ussed to send them to the employer for commercial courses as they paid for them but we then had to change adn send them to the candidates addresses.

Uncertain

Yes, it is the person and not the company that is awarded the certificate.

It is perfectly possible for employers to have terms and conditions under which they will pay for staff to obtain qualifications, for example that they have to pay back some or all of the cost if they leave within a certain period. However even this would not allow a company to hold the certificate to ransom.

In any case a certificate is just a piece of paper. Provided all the necessary steps have been completed for it to be awarded presumably the actual certificate can be re-issued for a nominal administrative fee.

I would speak to Gas Safe directly to ensure that the firm have actually done what they claim, submitted paperwork and paid fees. If they have not then it raises a whole different set of issues and it is time to get some legal advice.