Ive been working for my present company for nearly three years now and ive been fairly happy and have a good record with them.
All of our work is ADR tanker work so obviously you need a full ADR licence. My current licence runs out in November 2014 but to get my CPC hours in they have booked me in this November, 12 months early but apparently this is ok, With me so far?
Anyway they gave me the details of the course and also a letter stating that if I leave the company within two years I have to pay the cost of the ADR course back to the company and also a paragraph giving them permission to take the money out of my wages! Now as I started with the company in possession of a fresh full ADR licence which had four years left to run on it and the company have had the benefit of that licence for nearly three years I don’t think they are in the right to demand repayment if I leave and despite me holding an ADR licence for the best part of 25 years ive never had to pay for one yet. Im not thinking of leaving by the way, and I have a good working relationship with the company. So has anyone else had a similar problem or do we have any legal experts here who can advise?
PaulDun:
Ive been working for my present company for nearly three years now and ive been fairly happy and have a good record with them.
All of our work is ADR tanker work so obviously you need a full ADR licence. My current licence runs out in November 2014 but to get my CPC hours in they have booked me in this November, 12 months early but apparently this is ok, With me so far?
Hi Paul, 
Yes, I think I’m with you, but are you talking about taking an ADR refresher??
If so… you can only refresh an ADR certificate if you’re within the last 12 months of validity, but NOT within the last five weeks.
If you take an ADR refresher, you can only get 7 DCPC hours for it.
If you sit an initial ADR course, then all you need to do is mention to the instructor that you are a refresher candidate and ask him to put an “X” in the correct box in the part at the bottom of the course joining from that you will fill in when you start the course, then you can get 7, 14, 31 (or maybe even 28) DCPC hours and the course will come to you at a sensible pace. (5 days.) The advantage is that you get more choice. You would have to show the instructor your present ADR certificate at the same time.
If you take a refresher course, then exactly the same info has to be crammed into just short of three days, which from my experience of teaching it leaves most guy’s heads spinning because companies are usually crap at keeping their drivers informed of changes to Regs as they should. 
PaulDun:
Anyway they gave me the details of the course and also a letter stating that if I leave the company within two years I have to pay the cost of the ADR course back to the company and also a paragraph giving them permission to take the money out of my wages! Now as I started with the company in possession of a fresh full ADR licence which had four years left to run on it and the company have had the benefit of that licence for nearly three years I don’t think they are in the right to demand repayment if I leave and despite me holding an ADR licence for the best part of 25 years ive never had to pay for one yet. Im not thinking of leaving by the way, and I have a good working relationship with the company. So has anyone else had a similar problem or do we have any legal experts here who can advise?
I understand exactly where you’re coming from (I’m an ex-tanker diver) but you’re certainly not the first to report this problem, and I have even experienced it myself.
I’m fairly sure that the company can’t make a deduction from your wages if the deduction hasn’t been agreed in advance of the deduction being made, based on you having also signed something to that effect in advance of the deduction being made.
Somebody might post something to clarify that.
Although it’s a crap situation, it’s probably fair to say that you wouldn’t have got a start with the company if you didn’t have your ADR licence when you went for the initial interview. To be fair though, you’ve said that you’re not intending to leave, so it’s probably only an academic question anyway.
Playing Devil’s advocate… keep schtum, say nowt, and go on the course… I don’t think they take anything from your (final) wages on the strength of having given you a letter containing x, y and z if you haven’t signed something to indicate that you agreed to it. Maybe you didn’t notice that part of the letter. 