General purpose ex-employee reference letter
Use this letter to create a standard reference about a former employee for a potential new employer.
It is not a legal requirement to provide a reference unless you have a contractual obligation (e.g. it says so in their employment contract or in a settlement agreement). However, failure to provide a reference could leave an employer open to allegations of discrimination. You should therefore seriously consider providing an employee with a reference when asked. It is therefore important that your reference is free from language that could be discriminatory and the format of this reference should help you in this process.
For data protection reasons, it's likely that you'll need the employee's written consent to provide the information contained in this reference, before sending it.