TOWN hall chiefs have admitted that council staff spied on households they suspected were involved in council tax and housing benefit fraud.
Lancaster City Council last year used controversial surveillance tactics made available to local authorities under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIPA) Act to snoop on three homes.
RIPA was intended for use in the fight against crime incl
uding terrorism but it gives councils powers to access phone and email records and use surveillance. Lancaster said it needed to establish how many people were living in the homes it monitored because the occupants were claiming benefits on the basis that they were living alone. The surveillance resulted in a prosecution, a caution and an administrative penalty.
The city council has used RIPA 34 times over the past three years. Thirty of those were for complaints of noise nuisance and involved audio equipment being placed in neighbours' homes with their consent to record the noise as evidence.
The council says it makes "all reasonable attempts" to warn the alleged perpetrators about the complaint and the possibility of noise monitoring equipment being installed.
On one occasion CCTV was used in the communal area of sheltered accommodation after break-ins. Residents were informed the cameras were there but no signs were erected.
The use of RIPA by councils has come under fire by human rights campaign group Liberty, with some using it for matters as trivial as dog fouling.
Lancaster's Liberal Democrat group leader, Coun Stuart Langhorn, said: "The CCTV and audio equipment do not seem to be unreasonable when they are being used to protect vulnerable communities. But the benefit fraud surveillance seems a bit unnecessary. Sometimes there has to be an element of trust.
"I do not think it infringes someone's rights but it is beyond the bounds of decency.
"We are supposed to be a council, not Starsky and Hutch."
But Sarah Taylor, the council's head of legal services, said: "As a council we want to do all we can to protect people's human rights.
"However, there are some occasions in which we have to conduct covert surveillance to aid us in the detection and prevention of crime.
"We do this for the benefit of all residents.
"Instances of benefit fraud, for example, have a serious effect on the public purse and it is appropriate for us to do what we can to ensure it is detected."
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