Previous employer has disposed of my qualification certificates.

Rswin

A few months ago, After finishing my maternity leave, I handed my notice in at work.
I worked in a nursing home for 6 years, and during this time I completed many different courses, and NVQs on top of the yearly mandatory training. After each course completed our certificates were always sent to the place of work and our employer kept them on our file.
I have recently contacted them about sending me my training and qualification certificates which they have, most importantly the NVQ certificates.
I recieved an email reply saying
“In line with the new GDPR, we needed to dispose of personal information which we held for people no longer employed by us.
Sorry I can’t be of more help.”

I understand they need to dispose of personal information after a period of time, but should they have disposed of my certificates knowing that they hold the original copies? They didn’t contact me before disposing of them.

I am hoping to start a university degree and need my certificates in order to apply for the course. Is there anyway I can get replacement certificates? I have sat the courses with many different assessors and companies over the years and haven’t got this information writen down as I never thought I would need to. I also could not say for sure the exact year/month each course was completed.

ANY help would be appreciated as I don’t want this hard work to go to waste, and to not be able to further my education due to no proof of qualifications.
THANKYOU

prowla

A lot of providers supply electoronic certificates these days; you'd need to know their contact details, though.

JReacher1

In fairness to your previous employer how long did you expect them to hold onto these certificates? I imagine they paid for all the courses as well.

If you wanted them you should have asked for them when you left the company.

As prowla has posted you will need to contact the relevant educational bodies and ask if they can provide copies. It will probably cost you money though.

walwyn1978

It will cost money. Do you remember which awarding body it was? (Eg OCR, City and Guilds?)

If you know, contact them direct - they'll need your date of birth, approximate qualification dates etc. You can google them and their website will have contact details. Some even have a dedicated contact for 'I lost my certificates'

If you don't know, ask former colleagues who did the training with you who the awarding body is and go from there.

If you don't know at all, and can't find out, there are 5 main providers. They also between them provide for historical providers who have been taken over/folded into the larger company. You can find the 5 providers and who they represent here: https://www.gov.uk/replacement-exam-certificate/if-your-old-exam-board-no-longer-exists

You can contact each of the five on spec, but it still costs the same fee whether they find any records or not, so you're better off knowing which one/s to contact ideally.

Good luck getting them again.

Les79

I have to say, but I'm jealous of women who go off on maternity (though also appreciative that men can go off work for the same reason, but a lot less frequent). It does come across as merely being a paid holiday from work in some respects, more so when notice to leave is given shortly after maternity ends (but less so when the employee returns as normal)!

But to be honest, that has been bugging me from other recent threads on here so don't take it to heart OP. The system is set up in this way, and you've made your life choices. So all is well in the world.

Going back to your issue. I mirror what others have said in that you'd probably need to contact the awarding body. They'll have a record of it, but they will admittedly charge you for a copy.

You bemoan the fact that they don't have any of your qualifications still on file but, frankly, people in general have been fighting for companies to get rid of data once they've left so your whole premise is "against the grain" right now, so to speak (much like my views on maternity leave in my first two paragraphs). Oh and you should always ask for a copy from your employer, sod the file you want a physical copy to "frame them on your wall" (because you are proud of your accomplishments, not strictly because you are about to jump ship).

PS, their email reply was fairly nice in the grand scheme of things so a follow-up email asking for the name of the awarding body (AB) wouldn't go amiss. They may even assist you in contacting the AB if you haven't burnt your bridges.

elsien

If you work in care and your other certificates are things like fire/manual handling/medication etc, they'll go out of date anyway after two or three years. Organisational elearning, unless accredited, won't be of much use if you're going to university.
You can get copies of the NVQ from the awarding body - checked C&G earlier in the year for a replacement diploma certificate and I think it was somewhere round the £50 mark.

For future reference, if employers want to see things show them the original then tell them to take a copy for their records. I'd never leave the originals with anyone.

TELLIT01

Sorry Rswin, but you must accept most of the blame yourself. You should have requested the certificates when you left, or certainly shortly after. Complaining months after leaving that they have disposed of them is a bit late.

foolofbeans

Les79 wrote: »

I have to say, but I'm jealous of women who go off on maternity (though also appreciative that men can go off work for the same reason, but a lot less frequent). It does come across as merely being a paid holiday from work in some respects, more so when notice to leave is given shortly after maternity ends (but less so when the employee returns as normal)!

WTH??!!
Jealous?! A paid holiday?!
Maternity pay is NOWHERE near the same amount as most women earn from a wage. Nature hasn't yet caught up to the fact that men and women are EQUALS so women bear the burden of having children and the brunt of sexist attitudes from the likes of you.
Is it too much to ask a civilised society to support a woman when she is trying to ensure the best start for a child that will ultimately be paying taxes to pay for your pension?
Beggars belief that you felt the need to comment in such a negative way. How about next time thinking before you post such rude, outdated comments?

74jax

I organise training for our staff. The certificates are always held with me and shredded when the person leaves. We do not give out the certificates at all. We paid for the training, we keep on file. I didn't actually realise some companies give out the certificates.

Rswin

Tellit01 it wasn!!!8217;t that long ago I left probably 2 months, and during that time we!!!8217;ve still been in contact as I have returned uniforms, clock in cards, keys ect, and then after this I asked for my certificates and they were destroyed. SO during the time I was returning there items they could have mentioned destroying the certificates. So I am not to blame. Thankyou.

Elsien I understand mandatory training going out of date as we Renew this every 12months, however my NVQs are what I wanted. Thanks for your help I!!!8217;ll look into the paid replacements.

Les79 please don!!!8217;t be jealous of women who are on maternity as I can assure you it is not a paid holiday. maternity is at the end of your pregnancy therefore when you are exhausted, aching, likely to be having ridiculous pain such a short pelvic girdle and preparing to push a watermelon through your nose. To which you then cannot rest, your sore, sleep deprived and working a job 24/7 (although worth every second), whist keeping up the housework, cooking and getting ready to go back to working a normal job, so, definitely not a holiday :rotfl:
I have however, emailed them asking for the details ect so I!!!8217;m just awaiting on a reply.

74jax From what I understand most companies don!!!8217;t have certificates sent to the place of work, they are sent to the persons address. I can understand disposing of mandatory training ect as they are continuously renewed and whether in date or not should be renewed at the start of new employment. However NVQs is an unfair qualification to just throw away when an individual has worked hard for it.

Walwyn1978 ifs I recall correctly it was OCR. Thankyou for your help.

JReacher1 regardlesss of who paid for the course, I sat the course studied in all of my free time and completed the work therefore I earned the qualification not the company. And if I remember correctly, they receive a lot of funding towards the training so it doesn!!!8217;t 100% come from the companies bank balance. And I expected them to keep the certificates a short while, as It would have been polite to check if I wanted them or to contact me before disposing. But Thankyou

prowla

74jax wrote: »

I organise training for our staff. The certificates are always held with me and shredded when the person leaves. We do not give out the certificates at all. We paid for the training, we keep on file. I didn't actually realise some companies give out the certificates.

Wow - that's a nasty way of doing things.