Discrimination against travellers (1)
01 January 1991
Discrimination against travellers
artdoc August=1993
Confidential instructions about how Benefit Agency staff should
process claims by New Age travellers during summer festivals are
set out in an internal bulletin 24/93 headed: `New Age Travellers
(Not to be released into the public domain)'. It explains that
`Ministers are concerned that claims of this group are carefully
scrutinised and administered according to regulations and case
law'. The internal bulletin is geared to combatting stories in
the media and staff are told not to `underestimate the powers of
persuasion by the news media'. Adjudication Officers are
instructed that `in accordance with current instructions, (they)
may assume the eventual Employment Services Jobcentre decision,
or opinion (about the claim) will be adverse to the customer'(our
italics).
Six of the bulletin's 14 pages are given over to phone and fax
numbers for named officers who are part of a national police
intelligence unit monitoring the movements of New Age Travellers,
and a list the `possible itinerary' of 15 free festivals is
attached. John Wadham, legal officer of Liberty, said: `The
approach of the Benefits Agency mirrors the discriminatory
attitudes towards travellers shown by the police and courts.
Unfortunately such discrimination is lawful because New Age
Travellers are not regarded as a minority ethnic group like
Romanis'.
At the end of March the government announced that section 39
of the Public Order Act was to be strengthen by extending it to
cover green lanes and byeways and to reduce the number of
vehicles required to trigger the section from 12 to 6. New police
powers would allow them to turn back anyone they believe was
going to a `rave site' within a radius of five miles and to order
people `to leave a site where they believe ten or more people are
gathered and that a rave will take place and the local community
will suffer serious distress'.
Income Support Bulletin, 24/93; Home Office press release,
31.3.93.
Statewatch vol 3 no 4 July-August 1993