Simian to Honour Failed Training Provider Bookings

This situation has been caused by the failure of a large well-known third-party training organisation, who, as part of their business operation, acted as booking agency. For the purposes of this notice, we shall refer to the failed third party organisation as ‘company X’.

The training courses that company X took bookings for included several courses delivered directly by Simian at all our UK training centres. Payment was made at the point of booking by the individuals, or their employers who were attending the courses directly to company X and as such the agreement for the provision of training was between these organisations and individuals and company X and Simian received no payment.

As we sought to be paid for the courses we had delivered, a handful of the certificates of completion were held back. However, some certificates and cards were sent to company X and we have only very recently learned that they have also failed to pass these on to the delegates, which they have always done in the past.

This has resulted in a situation whereby training delegates have paid for, attended and completed training, only not to receive their cards and/or certificates; and while this is largely out of our control and can be solely attributed to company X’s failure to pay for services they have received, we are sympathetic to those that await receipt of their cards and certificates.

As a gesture of goodwill, Simian’s Directors have agreed to provide all outstanding certificates to delegates that attended these courses. Furthermore, each individual will receive a discount voucher, which can be used against a future booking, made directly with Simian, for CISRS Part One Scaffolding courses.

Dave Randles, Simian’s UK Operations Director, said:

“We have every sympathy towards those that have booked training courses in good faith through company X, only to find that their certificates and cards were held back. It is standard practice for training businesses to protect their position by issuing training certification upon receipt of payment and this is a position that Simian will maintain moving forward.

Some could take the view that this issue is between the delegates and company X, as Simian have never received payment for training that was delivered in good faith. However, we believe that it is unfair that delegates should be penalised through no fault of their own and for this reason, we have taken the decision to stand the cost of the training and card fees, which runs into thousands of pounds. We believe this reaffirms our commitment to ‘doing the right thing’ by both our customers and the scaffolding industry as a whole.”

All delegates affected by this issue will be contacted shortly and outstanding cards and certificates will be processed over the course of the next few days. We anticipate delegates receiving them within the next 6-7 working days.