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Discrimination against travellers

01 July 2003

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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.

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