Construction union Ucatt have strongly criticised the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) for providing "misleading and harmful advice" to workers who have just discovered that they have been blacklisted.

Over four and a half years after first seizing the Consulting Association blacklist the ICO are now finally writing to 1,200 of the blacklisting victims who have not yet requested their file.

However Ucatt is very concerned with the misleading advice that the ICO has attached to the letter sent to the blacklisted workers. The factsheet suggests that if people are not a member of a construction union they should contact the Construction Workers Compensation Scheme.

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The scheme is being proposed by eight of the companies involved in blacklisting. The scheme is proposing that workers could receive as little as £1,000 for being blacklisted and would be barred from pursuing any other legal claim against the blacklisting companies.

Steve Murphy, General Secretary of UCATT, said: "The ICO's advice is like telling someone who is in debt to visit a loan shark. Blacklisted victims will be shocked and stunned when they receive this letter and the ICO's misleading and damaging advice could compound that misery.

"The ICO also state in their letter that they 'did not find evidence of other blacklists'. However the ICO wrote to Ian Davidson MP the chair of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee last month that they had evidence of a separate blacklist with 500 names on it."

(CD/IT)