Have the Police and MI5 been helping companies to blacklist employees?

According to the Observer newspaper, David Clancy, investigations manager at the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and a former police officer recently told the Central London employment tribunal that the police or security services are believed to have supplied information to a blacklist that has kept thousands of people out of work over the past three decades – a blacklist that has been funded by the country’s major construction firms. The newspaper has reported that Mr Clancy believed records that could only have come from the police or MI5 were included in a vast database of files held by a shadowy organisation known as the Consulting Association, covering about 3,200 construction workers, mostly targeted for their trade union and particularly safety activities.

Such allegations are given greater authority by the fact that the ICO is the UK’s independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals.

This came out during an employment tribunal hearing concerning allegations by a number of these individuals against construction giant Carillion and other building firms alleging they have been denied employment and treated poorly because they were on the blacklist.

One of those individuals, Dave Smith, told the newspaper that "if managers on a building site don't like the fact that I am a safety rep because it affects their profit and their deadlines, then I understand why they might do it. I disagree with it, I think it is wrong, but I can understand, but for the police to be involved is appalling. This is the state linking up with big business basically, and any decent person in a civilised society would think it is appalling. This is about human rights. I have not done anything illegal; I am a member of a trade union. I have worked in an attempt to improve health and safety on building sites and yet it appears my employers, the state, security services and the police have been conspiring against me."

The Consulting Association was closed down and a 66-year-old private investigator, Ian Kerr, was fined £5,000 for administering the database, although the construction firms escaped prosecution.

Given the phone-hacking scandals involving newspapers and alleged close ties with the Metropolitan Police, these allegations by the ICO investigations manager, if true, appear to indicate a murky world operating between the state and big business – query whether this is a rarely sighted tip of the iceberg? Do employers in other sectors of industry operate similar blacklists? How widespread are the links between business and the state? And just as importantly, is the Government going to anything at all about it?

David Sorensen - Partner

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