Hi,

I need some advice in the following situation.

I've recently completed a 3 month contract in a job where my direct line manager was short tempered, verbally abusive and would often shout, yell and bully me and all other fellow staff.

During the contract I juggled numerous projects. One major project was completed and made substantial progress on the others. During the final week, my manager asked if I would consider a contract extension if it was offered, where I replied that I would consider this but did not confirm anything. Since I did not hear anything further, on the final day of my contract, a handover via email was given along with an update on the current state of all projects and left the company.

I recently attended a 1st stage interview for another job after leaving the company, where the offer was conditional on a successful vetting outcome. Information requested was some standard documentation, including employment history over the last 5 years, along with details of my direct line managers during this time.

During my 2nd stage interview, the interviewer informed me that my line managers have been contacted via telephone, where my previous manager (who was short tempered, verbally abusive and would often shout, yell and bully me and other fellow staff, where I would definitely not disclose by choice, but I could not supply false information on a vetting process) supplied a bad reference along with an inaccurate record of my duties. For example, I only worked on one project and made no progress on the other projects; I had left the company suddenly, etc. I believe I was not considered for this job that required the vetting process, based solely on the inaccurate information supplied by my previous line manager via the telephone.

I have heard that I can request information about myself due to the data protection act? However this was a telephone conversation between my previous line manager and my new potential employer. I now plan to make a formal complaint the HR department, however given that this was a contract role, will anything happen? Also, can a legal case be made?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Just be aware that the HR department in any company is there to protect the company, not punish it's staff. By all means write a complaint, but direct it at their line manager too.

try and deal with the parts that are provable-ie what you did regarding number of projects, outcome of work etc rather than get into arguments about the personal shortcoming of your ex-manager. There will be records of what you did so that is a damned sight easier to prove.

As for legal case? You need to be very rich or very poor to go down that road.

In this situation a Data Protection Act won't work, since this is used to request personal data held by the organisation. A verbal conversation would only be personal data if there was a written record of the conversation.

A complaint to the manager and the company could work, as could a properly worded threat to sue them for defamation. It would be difficult to follow this through but raising the possibility can stop people from repeating it - particularly as the company would be liable for the manager's statements. Obviously a verbal conversation is difficult to prove but not impossible, particularly if they admit it and try to give some flimsy justification for it (surprisingly common) or if in a court case the new employer is compelled to give evidence about what was discussed (uncommon, but possible).

Obviously a threat to sue will degrade the relationship further, and they may mention you have threatened to sue them if you try to use them as a reference again for other employers, but if they are giving bad, untrue references already not sure what you would have to lose?