Storm follows moonlighting blitz
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• A crackdown on suspected moonlighting truck drivers is unlikely to be repeated, following a furore by civil rights campaigners. It was the first time that Department of Social Security investigators have questioned drivers in their cabs about possible benefit fraud.
The check was carried out by the DSS in Scotland as part of a giant enforcement operation, Scotcheck '91 on 13 November. It revealed few cases of social security fraud — out of 300 drivers spoken to at Stirling, Inverness and Aberdeen, only two have been interviewed further and there are inquiries on "several" others.
"The roadside check is one of various methods used by our fraud teams," says the DSS. We view the cabs as the drivers' places of work and interviewed them there in the same way that we would go to building sites."
But the fraud investigation has been attacked by civil rights groups and by Pat Kelly, Scottish secretary of the civil service union NUCPS, who described the checks as "a most worrying development".
"While we know that the information has gone to DSS offices, one wonders whether some information has gone elsewhere," he says.
Jimmy Locke, the TGWU's new haulage trade group secretary for Scotland, says the DSS's behaviour was a "a breach of human dignity". Unlike the Health and Safety Executive and the traffic area, which indicated they would be carrying out checks, he alleges the DSS checks were made in secret.
"My objection is deep-seated," he says. If there are cowboys on the road who are defrauding the country we should take steps to stop them, but there are better ways of doing it."
Carole Ewart, director of the Scottish Council for Civil Liberties, says drivers need to be told exactly why the information was being sought, and Henry McLeish, Labour MP for Fife Central, has demanded to know what use was being made of the information gathered at the checks, The DSS referred the question to Michael Bichard, chief executive at the DSS, who stated that "no information was exchanged" with any of the other agencies involved in the checks. Bryan Colley, director-general of the Road Haulage Association, says: "We must uphold the law. We are all tax payers, and defrauding the state means there is less available to be paid on social services."
El The Health & Safety Commission, which was also involved
in Scotcheck, declared itself "very pleased" with the high standards of operation it found among 500 lorries it checked in its biggest enforcement operation to date. "Only 12 cases were reported to the procurator fiscal and only 30 drivers had anything wrong at all," it says.