Former employer not giving references

[EauDeChlorine]

Not sure what to do. When I resigned I got a nice email from them along the lines of Sorry you are leaving...valuable member of the team etc.
I now work in Civil Service. HR have been chasing the previous employer to no avail. I have tried to chase them myself and have been told that the person dealing with this has been sick for 2 weeks. The reference request was sent about 3-4 weeks ago.
I have informed by current HR department about that I had been told the person in question was off sick and given then the contact details for the companies MD.

I can’t think of anything else to do tbh. Any advice greatly appreciated. Thank you

Companies don't have to give references so I don't think there is anything else you can do tbh.

Character reference from somebody else?

Due to the nature of the post character references have already been obtained and were all good.
I had no choice but to put the employer’s details down on the form. It was a recruitment on the form to put this down.

I’m worried this will have implications on my new job.

Have you started work already? I can't imagine they would let you in without having reference that ticked their boxes.

Can the HR dept give a basic reference ie time served / role etc?

Will the new HR dept accept proof of employment in some other form?

Payslips or reference from a former colleague etc?

I work in HR and my organisation would accept that if a character reference went alongside it too.

So far I have provided last 3 months payslips (before taking up the role) for vetting purposes. I have also sent in a copy of my P60 and the employer has also obtained a personal reference. I started my new job about 5 weeks ago.

I still have the copy of my employment contact from my previous employer but that is all I have.
I don’t understand why they are being so difficult now that I have left.

Also it is not that they have said they won’t provide the reference. They are simply not responding. When I chased it myself a few weeks ago I got an email saying that it had been done yet because the person who deals with HR had been off sick for 2 weeks. If they were not going to respond then would they not just have said so? Why bother with the off sick scenario?

What are they proposing to do if the reference isn't provided? Are they going to sack you?

I don’t know tbh.
I’m hoping they will do a risk assessment if possible especially considering all the security clearances they already. I understand they are now trying to contact the MD of the company. Doubt anything will comeback but who knows.

Did you go through an actual security clearance process (CTC, SC)? Sounds like SC (your pass would be yellow) if you needed to provide payslips - I’d imagine that would reassure them, as it’s more rigorous than usual baseline references etc and your former employer might have been contacted By NSV.

I would ask them what the stakes are ie what would happen if reference isn’t provided

I’ve never known anyone to start work in CS without sufficient clearance/pre employment checks already in place.