Consulting Association
| Predecessor | Economic League |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1993 |
| Extinction | 2009 |
The Consulting Association (TCA) was a controversial UK business (described by its key figure as "a non-profit making, unincorporated trade association"), based in Droitwich, which, from 1993 to 2009, maintained a database of British construction workers and became implicated in a "blacklisting" scandal, which is ongoing. Revelations about the database resulted in the business being shut down, prosecutions, the Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010, a Parliamentary enquiry, High Court actions leading to compensation payouts valued at between £50m and £250m in total, and a series of cases being brought to the European Court of Human Rights.
The Consulting Association was established in 1993 as a successor to the Economic League, which had held the construction industry's blacklist but which had been wound up in 1993 after a parliamentary enquiry and bad press.
Construction company Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd invested a total of £20,000 in founding TCA, buying the previous blacklist database from the Economic League and hiring one of its former employees, Ian Kerr, as manager (McAlpine also invested £10,000 in founding another Economic League spin-off, CAPRiM, on the understanding that they would not interfere with the Consulting Association). In press releases and written testimony submitted to the Scottish Affairs Committee by its director Callum McAlpine, the company claimed that "at least 14" major construction and civil engineering companies colluded in forming The Consulting Association. This was corroborated by Kerr's written statement.
The database, often referred to as a "list" in the press and by one of its founders, operated as a blacklist against workers who were active trade union members or otherwise vocal on matters such as health and safety violations by their employers. Many of the workers were on the list having been accused by previous employers of being "troublemakers" or "militant"; other notes in the database referred to subjects' personal and family relationships, and those who had pursued an employment tribunal.
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