A pathetic and unacceptable response from the Home Office is shown below. I will be asking for an internal review, and if necessary, an appeal to the Commissioner.

>>>

Thank you for your e-mail dated 1 February 2005 in which you asked for information relating to the Home office’s use, with particular reference to the IND, of 0870 telephone numbers. We are now in a position to offer a substantive reply to your request.

After having carefully considered your request and having examined the information that you requested in your letter I am pleased to be able to disclose the following information that you have requested.

The decision  on the use of 0870 telephone numbers by the IND was taken by the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, in March 1998 because it offered considerable benefits in terms of the Home Office’s ability to better manage the service and therefore improve the quality of service to customers.  Ministers’ agreement was given on the understanding that IND kept a close eye on the level of service under the new arrangements and on the understanding that IND reinvest any monies earned back into improving the telephone bureau operation and thereby customer service.  This has been done, £0.75M was used in Spring 2002 to purchase a brand new switchboard with increased functionality for INEB.

The IND have further informed me that they do not have geographical telephone numbers for their public telephone service, this service can only be accessed through dialing the 0870 number.

The core Home Office’s main switchboard telephone number is another 0870 number and there is no geographical equivalent that can be dialed for it either. The switchboard further informed me that they use the national 0870 number as the Home Office deals only with internal national issues, so there is no need for them to have a switchboard number that is internationally accessible.

The Home Office does not hold any minutes of meetings relating to Ministerial decisions on the use of 0870 numbers.  

I know that some of this information may come as a disappointment to you, but I can assure you that the Home office did instigate a thorough search for the information you asked for and I have provided you with all of the information that was found. It has been suggested to me that any queries you have should be made via e-mail to the Home office’s public enquiries team.

May I also apologize to you for the delay in responding to your request. I am afraid that it took us longer than anticipated to locate the relevant information.

If however you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review of any aspect of our handling of your application. During the internal review the department’s handling of your information request will be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. An internal review can be requested by submitting your complaint to:

Information Policy Team
Record Management Service
Home Office
4th Floor, Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.

The response by the Home Office is one of the most evasive I have seen.  Keep at it and appeal. It will be interesting to see the results.  

Probably a very silly coment but can you ask for the geographic number under the new freedom of information act?

wrote on May 12^th, 2005 at 1:59pm:

Probably a very silly coment but can you ask for the geographic number under the new freedom of information act?

Not a very silly comment at all!

But when you have been at it as long as we have, you will realise that there is no point in asking a question which you know the answer to! And you also know that it is incorrect.

"There is no geographical number".

juby

wrote on May 12^th, 2005 at 1:59pm:

Probably a very silly coment but can you ask for the geographic number under the new freedom of information act?

The response shown *is* as a result of a freedom of information (FOI) request. I have asked for an internal review and, if that does not provide the number, an appeal to the Information Commissioner will follow. The Home Office/IND is being evasive and inaccurate and this is not acceptable for a public body.

The result of my internal review is shown below. A complete reversal of the Home Office's previous position. Another small victory in the battle with the bureaucrats

<<
Thank you for your e-mail dated 11 May in which you asked for an internal review of the response to your FOI request about 0870 telephone numbers.  

I must first acknowledge, and further apologise for, the delay in providing you with a full response to your initial request and request for a review.  I admit that there were delays in allocating and handling your request and in this we failed to honour our statutory obligations.  I want to assure you that we are working to improve our processes to ensure that all staff are aware of the importance of complying with the Act and ensure that we meet deadlines in future.  

Under the Freedom of Information Act you requested the following information:

1.  that the Home Office and IND provide you with the geographic numbers for all the services that currently operate on 0870 numbers, specifically for the IND general enquiry number and the IND Croydon enquiry number since you cannot dial the 0870 numbers from overseas.

2.  any relevant information as to why the Home Office and IND introduced revenue generating numbers and the amount of revenue that IND/Home Office receives from using such numbers

3.  why the COI’s advice is being ignored in that the Home Office and IND continue to use 0870 numbers.

In your request for an internal review you stated that, in your opinion, the response you received was unacceptable because you did not believe that there are no geographical numbers which correspond to the 0870 numbers.  You believed the Home Office/IND is withholding this information because it wishes to protect revenue streams from the numbers.  

I have now completed a review of the initial decision and have provided a separate response to each part of your request below.

...continued

1. Geographic equivalent numbers
I can tell you that the geographic equivalent telephone numbers for IND and the Home Office do in fact exist.  They are as follows:
Immigration General and Progress Enquiries: 0208 253 6700 (0870 606 7766)
Immigration Application Forms: 0208 253 6703 (0870 241 0645)
Home Office: 020 7035 4747
The geographic number for the Home Office (as above), which underlies the 0870 000 1585 number introduced in July 2002, has always been available on request from the public enquiry switchboard to anyone who wanted it.  However it will now be published on the Home Office website.  

When your request for information was received in February my colleague, Stephen Sowerby, contacted staff in IND and the core Home Office asking for information relating to your request both for the phone numbers themselves and for the background information which you also requested.  On receiving negative responses about the phone numbers, he contacted the telephone company (Global Crossing) itself.  They were also unable to provide geographic numbers for the Immigration and Nationality Enquiry Bureau.  I can confirm that you were given all the information that was available to Mr Sowerby at the time.

When I was asked to review the information and correspondence relating to your request I asked colleagues in IND again about the apparent lack of any numbers for callers from overseas to contact their office.  I can assure you that they made every effort to find out whether there were geographical equivalents to the 0870 numbers at the time of your original request.  However it was not until 9 June that it came to light that these numbers do exist and they were supplied to me on 30 June.

I understand that these numbers have not yet been publicised in the UK for operational reasons.  Callers using numbers prefixed with 0208 avoid the IND call routing plans and in effect their calls are queued ahead of users of the 0870 numbers.  In addition IND are unable to obtain statistical data from 0208 numbers.  Statistical information gleaned from 0870 numbers is vital to IND for  business planning and staffing purposes.  

I can only apologise for the failure to provide you with this information at an earlier stage.  I can assure you that this was not done to deliberately frustrate you.  

...continued

2. Why did the Home Office introduce revenue generating numbers and how much revenue does the Home Office receive
As stated in the original response, decisions to use 0870 numbers were taken on the basis of estimates of cost and benefits to the Department and the customer.  I can confirm that IND reinvested any revenue made into improving the telephone bureau operation and its service to customers.  £0.75M was used to purchase a new switchboard in 2002.  In addition IND now opt for revenue free 0845 numbers from BT.  I understand that the core Home Office, whose telephony service is provided by Sirius, receive no income from 0870 numbers.

3. Why is the COI’s advice being ignored
At present there are a number of non-geographic numbers in use within the Home Office Group.  The Home Office is of course aware of the COI guidance, and is currently reviewing the use of 0870 numbers for both IND and the wider Home Office.  As recent events have highlighted, these numbers are restricted in their use.  The review will include investigating options for callers from overseas as we are aware of the difficulties experienced by people trying to contact IND and the Home Office from abroad.  Consideration has been complicated and delayed by the fact that any numbers we use for this service must be provided through an external contractor as part of a services contract, and therefore commercial considerations are attached to any change.  We are in the final stages of clarifying costs, and expect to reach a decision in the autumn.  A decision has already been taken to switch the main public enquiry switchboard number back to a geographic one, and arrangements are in hand to do this.  We will provide you with a full list of all the geographic numbers as soon as they are available.


Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review you have the right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.  His address is Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

[end]

Going back to the HO's original response:

"The switchboard further informed me that they use the national 0870 number as the Home Office deals only with internal national issues, so there is no need for them to have a switchboard number that is internationally accessible. "

This has to be one of the most utterly stupid statements that has ever been made by a British government civil servant.

Home Office - deals with, inter alia, police matters, internal security matters, terrorism, immigration, criminal records and many more activities.

Why did they conclude that there is no need to receive calls from overseas? Amazing!

wrote on Aug 5^th, 2005 at 6:10pm:

"The switchboard further informed me that they use the national 0870 number as the Home Office deals only with internal national issues, so there is no need for them to have a switchboard number that is internationally accessible. "

Ditto what idb says about the daft statement.

So what is the switchboard's 0870 and geographical number so it can be added to the list?

I wrote to Tony Blair about the use of 0870 for the London Bombing and today received a reply from Ian Bloom, HomeOffice as my enquiry was passed on to him from the PM's office.

The reply was nothing new and mentioned what is already known but what I thought was interesting is that Ian Bloom mentioned the use of 0870 numbers that the HomeOffice itself uses, and I quote:-

Quote:

We have reviewed the use of 0870 numbers in respect of the core Home Office's public enquiry service, and concluded that with immediate effect we should switch to a geographical (0207) number.

Now I still notice that their website still mentions the 0870 number and I'm going to email back (the letter I received was in snail-mail) and query this with him.

A footnote to the Home Office FOI request. Whilst the HO was still dithering, I put in a complaint to the National Audit Office after a suggestion by NG Man. Didn't really expect anything productive, however I received this from the NAO:

<<
Thank you for your email of 27th July to Sir John Bourn, Comptroller & Auditor General. Sir John has passed your email to me for reply.

I took up your complaint with the Home Office: both your request for the phone numbers and also why they have taken so long to answer you. I am glad to say that a full response containing the information you request is on its way to you from them as of Thursday 4th August. You may be interested to know also that colleagues in the NAO are monitoring the work of OfComm with regard to the use of 0870 numbers by government departments, and I have made them aware of your concerns.

Thank you for taking time to contact us.
>>

Quite encouraging really. Perhaps not all government is clueless on 0870 scam lines after all.

Amazing!

My favorite bit is:


Quote:

it came to light that these numbers do exist

Maybe another FOI request to explain how exactly it "came to light"!!!

It seems that the standard response to many FOI requests is taken straight from the "Sir Humphrey" manual on the Civil Service: Deny/block/smokescreen the initial request in the knowledge that 75% of enquirers will not then move on to request an internal review etc...

Further to my post (#10), I chased up Ian Bloom about what he mentioned in his letter to me about the HomeOffice with immediate effect will goto to a geographical number.

Well today, I finally received a reply as follows:-

Quote:

Thank you for your e-mail of 20/08/05 15:24:15 about the advertisement of a 0870 number on the Home Office website following previous correspondence that the core Home Office public enquiry service would be switching to a geographical (0207) number. That change has occurred and the new Home Office public enquiry line geographic number ( 0207 035 4848 ) is up and running and I understand the website has been updated accordingly. Unfortunately, the 0870 number also appears on a number of other customer facing Home Office documents, posters and public sector reference manuals. We estimate there are over 300 telephone directories alone that will need revision which is not an inconsiderable task when most of those documents are outside our control. It is estimated it may take up to 18 months to eradicate completely the 0870 number. However, please be assured that the Home Office are actively engaged in facilitating this change and are pressing ahead with propagation of the new number throughout the system.

Looking at their website here they have indeed changed it to a geographical.

I believe this is a victory for us!   Nothing in the grand scheme of things but a (small) victory none the less!