Let me in, I’m here to check if your pot plant has a passport
Crazy reasons why 20,000 snoopers can barge into British homes
AN army of almost 20,000 council busybodies – including more than 1,600 in Scotland – can legally barge into homes and businesses under bizarre powers allowing them to check on pot plants and fridges.
A new report has revealed the number of town hall snoopers who have permission to enter people’s property uninvited to search for information under a raft of invasive laws.
Glasgow City Council has 226 council staff with these powers – the seventh highest number in a UK-wide league table.
Despite a Conservative manifesto pledge to curb ‘intrusive powers of entry’, there are still at least 1,065 pieces of legislation that allow bureaucrats to inspect someone’s home, often without a warrant or police escort.
Even though Government departments were ordered to cut back on the disproportionate number of rules, this has been ‘painfully slow’, with still more than the 1,043 powers of entry available to councils in 2008.
Meaningless regulations include those allowing officials to investigate whether or not a pot plant has a ‘passport’.
Plants which are imported and may contain pests require special documentation to allow their movement across borders. The regulations also allow the inspection of properties to make sure ‘illegal or unregulated hypnotism’ is not taking place under laws introduced in 1952.
Other powers allow officials to inspect the energy rating on fridges, while council staff can also measure hedges to make sure they are not too high.
Emma Carr, director of privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, which carried out the research, said the study was proof of ‘mission creep’ in the number of powers of entry.
She said: ‘Few people would expect that public officials would have the power to enter your home or business, often without a warrant or police escort.
‘The general public have been left high and dry, at the mercy of an army of pen-pushers who can enter our homes as they please.’
Using Freedom of Information laws, Big Brother Watch surveyed 433 councils in Britain to reveal the number of staff they had authorised to conduct property searches.
Replies were received from 411 local authorities, which said at least 19,375 officers had powers of entry – equivalent to 45 in every town hall – i ncluding 1,604 in Scotland. Eight local authorities in the UK had more than 200 bureaucrats with authorisation apart from Glasgow, with Northumberland topping the list with 541.
Last night, a Glasgow City Council spokesman said: ‘Powers of entry are normally used only when all other courses of action have been exhausted and we have been unable to get agreement from the property owner.’
Under the Coalition agreement in May 2010, the Tories and Lib Dems pledged to ‘reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties and roll back state intrusion’ which had been massively extended under Labour. Following a review of each Whitehall department, i t was announced the number of powers would be culled from 1,237 to 912.
But at least 153 powers were outside the scope of the review, bringing the total back up to 1,065.
Last night the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the council umbrella body, declined to comment.