Hi a frequent viewer now a newbie...

Just noticed that the Citizen's Advice Bureau have now gone to 0870!!!!

There is even a message on one of the old numbers advising you to ring the new 0870 number.

It's getting worse!

...and you can bet London to a brick that if the Ofcom proposals for 0870/0845/0871/0844 are introduced, it will get FAR worse! (see postings on this site)

You ain't seen nothing yet!!

I despair for you all.........  :-[

If we had the power to act just like those violent and empty-headed animal rights extremists, we would have eliminated Non-geo numbers in no time. >:(

look on their site, all local numbers are still there.. Im sure someone can take a note of them *all* and keep them for here ;)

Having a need to contact the above, I tried my local one with a geo no but this is permanently engaged, has no message facility & does not reply to emails (it is supposed to be one of the best so what did I expect?!)   I then tried to get numbers for other nearby offices, Cambridge & Braintree, to discover that the former has an 0844 no & the latter an 0870!   I was appalled.   The woman at the regional office in Cambridge was unaware of the cost implications and shocked when I told her and said she will pass it on to senior managers.   How can this fit with guidelines about public organisations, particularly those such as CAB which are frequently the only option for the poorer members of society, and how do they justify what are premium rate numbers?   What about COI guidelines or do they get out of it as they are technically, I believe, a charity not a government department?   I did mention this website but felt I should just ensure forum users are aware & can perhaps add their protests as I could not find any other threads on this subject.

I wouldn't be surprised if they thought their new numbers were 'local' or 'national' rate.

You'd be surprised at how many consumers, businesses think this still applies.  It's only those in the 'know' working for telecom companies that really know the truth but are scared to say anything because it may result in fewer sales of these numbers.

Interesting explanation about one of the possible uses of donations to the CAB (from their website):


Quote:

£60 will keep our volunteer hotline on 08451 264 264 (which receives 3400 calls annually) running for a day.

They claim it is costing them £15,600 a year to maintain the 0845 number, (assuming it operates 5 days a week)!

Any comment out there considering that the person who takes the average 13 calls a day is almost certainly also a volunteer?

i wanted to call me local Citizens Advice Bureau this morning and find they are using 0870 numbers for
all their offices, this service is used by poor and low income people.
there are not alternatives to this number yet.
maybe this need a petition to number 10 also?

regards

Z

In less than 6 months, the cost of calling 0870 numbers will be the same as calling geographical numbers.

Watch 'em join the "We're moving to 0871 xxx xxxx to enhance the service we provide" brigade.

What is the best thing to do about this?

Should we write to the trustees?
http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/aboutus/ourtrustees.htm

Should we write to the executive directors?
http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/aboutus/ourexecutivedirectors.htm

Should we make freedom of information requests for the advice they may have been given by fraudulent telecoms consultants as in the Oldham Leisure case and for the economic costs and benefits which led to this decision?

Should we try to reason with people in positions of responsibility and appeal to their better judgement?

Should we write to our MPs?

Aren't CABs publicly funded and, if so, don't they have any public accountability?

Can we band together to draught a single letter which presents the facts and then send it to multiple parties. What would be the best strategy?

Any ideas?

zenla wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2007 at 9:19am:

i wanted to call me local Citizens Advice Bureau this morning and find they are using 0870 numbers for all their offices

It is the intention of the national umbrella charity, Citizens Advice, to set up a single national telephone number. Citizens Advice doesn't appear to be publicising a single number at this time, nor is there any indication of the code that might be used, and there is no indication that this is intended to replace numbers for individual Citizens Advice Bureaux - that wouldn't make any sense, citizens often need to speak to the advisor at their local bureau that is dealing with their issue.

A cursory check shows that for individual Citizens Advice Bureaux the situation hasn't changed over the past few months and is still a mixed picture. Some use 0870 numbers, some use 0844 numbers, and others use geo numbers. I note that in some cases neighbouring bureaux share an 0870 number, which indicates that it was adopted for the routing facilites. If you think that they opted for the 0870 - and might change to an 0871 - for revenue generation, one would ask: for whose benefit, given that the bureaux are operated by volunteers? The inconsistent approach indicates that individual bureaux do not have the benefit of centralised advice on the issue and may be unaware of the cost implications. Citizens Advice says:


Quote:

Help us change We can’t do this on our own, we need resources and we need your help. Perhaps you are able to: ... ... * Provide technical advice and/or support? * Share your experience and/or expertise? ...

so there may be the opportunity for those with the knowledge to support the bureaux with their expertise.

longusername wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2007 at 1:40pm:

What is the best thing to do about this?

If you mean "What is the best thing to do about Citizens Advice Bureaux using 0870 numbers for all their offices" I would suggest that the first thing to do is to check the facts. My cursory investigation suggests that it is not true.


Quote:

Should we write to the trustees? and Should we write to the executive directors?

Be aware that (AFAIK) Citizens Advice supports individual bureaux, it doesn't govern them.


Quote:

Should we make freedom of information requests for the advice they may have been given by fraudulent telecoms consultants

I don't think FOI applies to charities.

Quote:

If you mean "What is the best thing to do about Citizens Advice Bureaux using 0870 numbers for all their offices" I would suggest that the first thing to do is to check the facts. My cursory investigation suggests that it is not true.

Mine suggests it is.
                                               

Cambridge	0844 848 7979
Newcastle-under-lyme	0870 126 4049
Hillingdon	0870 126 4021

Please check the name of this site.


Quote:

Be aware that (AFAIK) Citizens Advice supports individual bureaux, it doesn't govern them.

Do you have any evidence for this?

For information, the picture in London is quite varied.  The majority of CABs have 0870 numbers, some 0845 numbers, but quite a few still have geographic numbers.

I was reading a Post on this site about the LibDems 'Faceless Britain Campaign.  At one major meeting, a 'sympathetic attendee was the Citizens Advice Bureau.  Imagine my surprise to find that when I tried to ring my local CAB..... it has only an 0844 number to contact them.  Admittedly their minicom number is a local Northampton number but this, in my view is disgraceful.  If it wasn't so sad it would be hilarious.

As a volunteer working on IT support at a CAB in London, I can shed light on what's happening in Citizens Advice Bureaux.

First, CABx are staffed mainly by volunteers - we are the largest voluntary organisation in the UK; there are 800+ bureaux in England & Wales, with 80+ in Scotland, with over 1,000 offices.  All the bureaux are autonomous charities; our national umbrella organisation is called Citizens Advice, but that's just a trading name - the official name is the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux.  To be a member of the national association and to be entitled to call ourselves a Citizens Advice Bureau, each bureau must pass stringent quality tests and we are audited against the standards every three years.  The audit really is thorough to maintain the reputation of the "brand"; several bureaux every year fail the audit and have to undertake remedial action - being ejected from membership is not unknown.  CABx get the bulk of their funding from their local authority, which explains why there are apparent variations in the level of services; only Citizens Advice itself gets funding from central government, and they've just had a 20% reduction in their grant.  The reluctance of some local authorities to fund their local CAB leads to residents approaching bureaux in neighbouring boroughs, a particular problem in London.  Increasingly, we are seeing local authorities demanding that we serve only our local residents and turn away anyone who doesn't live or work in our borough.  For a telephone service, it's rather difficult to control who rings.

Several postings above have commented on the difficulty of getting a bureau to answer.  Sadly, it is true that very few bureaux provide a good telephone service.  Telephone advice services have always been the poor relation within bureaux simply because demand outstrips our ability to supply and, when we have a queue of people waiting at the door, it's the telephone that doesn't get answered.  But with the ever-changing way our clients expect to access our services, it's clear that there is a huge unmet demand via the telephone, and many bureaux are attempting to improve their services both by dedicating a greater proportion of resources and by innovation.  The "Single Telephone Number" project mentioned in an earlier posting is one such development being promoted by Citizens Advice, which aims to distribute calls to advisers in bureaux anywhere in the country, the key concept being that we can be most efficient if we don't have advisers sitting idle because there are gaps in demand for any local telephone service.  Sadly, this project is somewhat controversial within bureaux and is not making the progress originally anticipated.

Clearly, with a national service it has to have some sort of switching facility and requires a non-geographic number, in this case we've been told it will be an 0844 number.  The funds generated by the 0844 number will go to cover the infrastructure costs of Citizens Advice; the bureaux actually answering the calls won't see a penny - obviously a bone of contention!  The national system will filter calls based on the location of the caller - if you are calling from an area where the local bureau is a member of the national scheme, you'll be put through, but not necessarily to anyone local - the adviser could be at the other end of the country; if your local bureau is not a member, you'll be told to contact your bureau direct - hard luck!

Many bureaux do already use 0845 numbers (and, controversially, a few 0870s), though this is not usually for raising revenue (I doubt many bureaux managers are aware that it's possible to take a share of the revenue!).  The basis for most bureaux using a non-geographic number is to be able to divert calls via Q-CAll, run by Call Handling, which offers automated information responses out-of-hours.  The Q-Call service costs money to bureaux, hence the appeals for donations and why some bureaux just can't afford it.

Some bureaux have taken the stance to retain a geographic number because:
a) it discourages callers from outside the local-rate area.
b) many of our callers use pay-as-you-go mobilephones because they cannot afford land-lines.  Mobilephones are approaching 50% of incoming calls.  Since call charges for non-geographic numbers from some mobilephones can be outrageously expensive (50p/min), we've made a deliberate decision not to penalise our clients.

I hope that puts some perspective of the problems facing Citizens Advice Bureaux.  (The saynoto0870 web-site is bookmarked on all our computers in my bureau.)

CABvolunteer wrote on Jun 18^th, 2008 at 12:33pm:

Many bureaux do already use 0845 numbers (and, controversially, a few 0870s), though this is not usually for raising revenue (I doubt many bureaux managers are aware that it's possible to take a share of the revenue!).  The basis for most bureaux using a non-geographic number is to be able to divert calls via Q-CAll, run by Call Handling, which offers automated information responses out-of-hours.  The Q-Call service costs money to bureaux, hence the appeals for donations and why some bureaux just can't afford it.

This serves to highlight how those making the decision to switch to 0870 are ignorant of the facts. Clearly they are the sort of people that the telephone companies providing these numbers love!


CABvolunteer wrote on Jun 18^th, 2008 at 12:33pm:

Some bureaux have taken the stance to retain a geographic number because: a) it discourages callers from outside the local-rate area.

Local and national calls cost the same. So the "local rate" area is the entire UK!

Does this mean some CABs still believe that national calls cost more than local ones? Or is it that they think that callers are ignorant of this fact?

The last mainstream tariff to charge different local and national geographical call rates was scrapped in 2004.


CABvolunteer wrote on Jun 18^th, 2008 at 12:33pm:

b) many of our callers use pay-as-you-go mobilephones because they cannot afford land-lines.  Mobilephones are approaching 50% of incoming calls.  Since call charges for non-geographic numbers from some mobilephones can be outrageously expensive (50p/min), we've made a deliberate decision not to penalise our clients.

So CAB is happy to disadvantage those who call it?

The point about 084/087 NGNs is that they are an inefficient revenue sharing mechanism. The extra cost to the caller is greater than the revenue paid to the receiver. So unless the tooth fairy takes his cut, then the telcos are raking it in. Hence the reason why they provide them!!

CABvolunteer wrote on Jun 18^th, 2008 at 12:33pm:

Clearly, with a national service it has to have some sort of switching facility and requires a non-geographic number, in this case we've been told it will be an 0844 number.

Unfortunately you have been mislead by your advisers who have perpetuated yet again the untruth that in order to have "some sort of switching facility" you "require a non-geographic number".   You can have all the switching you like with complete flexibility with a normal geographic number.   Please don't be taken in by the telecoms industry on this point.   I am sure they sell many, perhaps most, non-geo numbers on this argument that you can only have call switching with ngns -- it simply is not true.  

You can find out the truth about this with just a few minutes specific searching on the web; or if you would like more specific information or names of companies which can potentially provide such a switching service to you, then please let me know.

Your posting is generally most helpful and informative and I would emphasise that I am not criticising you personally, I am trying to counter this general misunderstanding about call switching which the telecoms industry perpetuate.

CABvolunteer wrote on Jun 18^th, 2008 at 12:33pm:

The funds generated by the 0844 number will go to cover the infrastructure costs of Citizens Advice; the bureaux actually answering the calls won't see a penny - obviously a bone of contention!

Dave has already commented on this point where he says "NGNs are an inefficient sharing mechanism....."     To elaborate on this a little further -- the real winners in this revenue sharing malarkey are the telecoms suppliers and the big losers are the ordinary phone user.   Whereas a call to a geo number for anyone with an inclusive calls package will have a marginal cost of zero a call to an 0844 number will cost typically 5p per minute plus 6p connection charge.  So a ten minute call will cost, say, 56p, out of which you CAB might receive 10p.  This is why these numbers are referred to by Government Ministers as a "rip-off".

As you correctly point out the cost to a mobile phone caller is vastly greater -- that 10 minute call could cost between £2 and £4!! -- out of which CAB would still only receive 10p!!

It's clear that the folks contributing to this site know much more about telecoms than the IT support people in CABx.  Might I suggest you consider volunteering at your local CAB to employ your expertise for the benefit of your local community and the whole Citizens Advice Bureau service?  It's apparent that the planning of national and local telephone services lacks technical expertise.

Just a point of clarification, because my posting was maybe a little confusing in its phrasing:

Whilst the majority of CABx management might have little idea on how to extract a share of revenue from 08x numbers, I'm sure the bureaux which utilise 0870 numbers are fully aware of the financial benefits to themselves.  I should also point out that the CAB service strives to continue to offer a free service to all-comers - there is a substantial sector within the CAB service which deplores the use of 0870 numbers; if bureaux could afford it, we'd have 0800 numbers for our telephone advice services! There has been some debate internally over the impact of non-geographic numbers on our clients, which is how I heard that mobilephones could be so expensive, but that debate lacks technical input.

I also need to reiterate that all the 800+ bureaux around the country are independent, with their own boards of trustees.  Each bureau is responsible for running its own face-to-face and telephone advice services, and each decides whether to use a geographic, 0845 or 0870 number for their own local services. Whilst our national association, Citizens Advice, might like to think they are running things, the Citizens Advice Bureau service is very far from being a uniform and monolithic organisation.  There is still, just, the opportunity for individuals to innovate and provide a better service for their community, and, by example, encourage others in bureaux elsewhere to adopt best practise.

Thanks for your input.

[Just to be pedantic, BT still do charge different rates for local and national calls where the customer is not on a Calling Plan.]

[Just to be pedantic, BT still do charge different rates for local and national calls where the customer is not on a Calling Plan.]


But surely everyone has got a calling plan?

In any case I thought that BT had abolished different rates about four years ago.

Calls to 0800 numbers from mobiles cost an 'arm and a leg'.

CABvolunteer wrote on Jun 20^th, 2008 at 12:26pm:

I suggest you consider volunteering at your local CAB to employ your expertise for the benefit of your local community and the whole Citizens Advice Bureau service

CABV

I have a number of ideas about how this could be achieved more effectively. Please get in touch by email or PM.

SCV

CABvolunteer wrote on Jun 20^th, 2008 at 12:26pm:

[Just to be pedantic, BT still do charge different rates for local and national calls where the customer is not on a Calling Plan.]

So those on a "calling plan" are on BT "discounted" tariffs then. These are the tariffs which have come about due to the free market which now exists.

Those not on a "calling plan" must be those on BT "non-discounted" tariffs where national calls cost more than local ones and the rates are effectively at "pre-competition" levels.

Organisations which choose to argue that those calling will pay more if they call from further away clearly do not appreciate today's telephone market. Perhaps they do not believe that the caller should have free choice of tariffs.

These are the exact same tariffs where 0870 is aligned to the national rate and where 0845 is aligned to the local rate. It is because 0845 and 0870 numbers have been "pegged" to these archaic rates that they allow for revenue sharing.

So we can now see why organisations such as the CAB like to pretend that those on a "call plan" are the exception.

Perhaps these same organisations should not be allowed to benefit from a free-market in other services such as electricity, gas, office stationary etc, with the prices they pay for these being set at a rate above today's market price as this is what they are doing to those telephoning them.

Furthermore, if the issue of someone paying more is of an issue, as they claim it is, then why are they not concerned about those calling from mobiles? After all, where a differential between local and national geographical rate exists it is 4 pence per minute and national calls cost 8 pence per minute.

It is stated that “The Citizens Advice service provides free, independent, confidential and impartial advice to everyone on their rights and responsibilities”.

All 084x and 087x telephone numbers are “revenue sharing”. This means that part of the charge paid by the caller is transferred to the person called. This may by used to subsidise the cost of their telephone service, rather than taken as income, however this does not affect the fact that any service delivered using this type of number cannot truly be described as “free”.

If there is some purpose in using a non-geographic telephone number with the caller only paying the telephone company for carrying the call, these must be from the 03xx range, on which revenue sharing is prohibited. Charges for calling 03xx numbers must be no greater than that for calling local (or indeed other geographic) numbers, often through a call-inclusive package where no charge is levied for any individual call lasting less than one hour.

Whilst use of revenue sharing numbers by CABx may reduce the burden on budgets and those who provide funding, it threatens the basis on which that funding is provided in the first place. Those who volunteer may be pleased that this situation enables more services to be provided for a particular level of funding, but may be concerned that whilst some costs are met by clients, theirs are not.

It is vital that CABx and “Citizens Advice”, the national association, get to grips with this matter, declare an awareness of the need to cease this practice and start the process of making alternative arrangements.

I believe that an opportunity should be provided for this to occur before members start to seek to engage the media in drawing attention to this particular example (amongst many) of inappropriate use of revenue sharing numbers. Such attention should be focussed on those who fund CABx and those who volunteer, as many clients will still find that they get “value-for-money” despite having to pay for CAB advice!

(I hope these comments are useful.)

Just spoke to my local CAB's manager.  He said that 2 years ago they moved to a NGN.

They told me that they had previously been paying BT to transfer the calls from one office to the other if no one picked up the phone but that BT charged the CAB for the call charges for that transfer.  It turned out they were paying £1,000 a year which in times of falling levels of donations from the public and cuts in grants from their local authority they could no longer afford so they made the tough decision to adopt an NGN becuase there would be no inter-office call charges for them.

It is an 0845 number and they do not receive any money whatsoever.

Now, every call is put straight through to an answer phone and the CAB then calls them back.  Any members of the public who have an ongoing case are given the office's geographical number to save the money too.

This seems eminently sensible.  After all, if the CAB have to rely on volunteers to give a "free" advice service then maybe that says something about how strapped for cash they are.

With the credit crunch starting to bite they have seen a huge upsurge in demand for their services and their phone bill is set to top £10k this year which is a huge chunk of their income.  Are there any links to websites that show how charities like the CAB can take advantage of the inter-office call transfers without having to rely on expensive hardware/software?

I notice on their web site they are advertising their number as 'local rate'. Not so, as local rate calls were abolished several years ago, so this is mis leading and probably illeagal to advertise it this way.

This publication is just over a year old now, but I don't believe it's been mentioned:

http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/pdf_are_you_being_served.pdf

It's a booklet produced by CAB entitled Are you being served? CAB evidence on contacting utilities companies

On page 12 it states:


Quote:

2. Costs incurred in getting through to utility companies Lengthy calls to utility companies waste not only time but also mean that the customer often incurs substantial costs. Since freephone numbers are not widely used among utility companies, with some notable exceptions such as EDF Energy and E.ON, the time that a customer spends on the phone can add quite significantly to their bills. In general, most utility companies provide customers with a non-geographic number, such as 0845 or sometimes an 0870. The rates charged for calling 0845 and 0870 numbers vary between telephone operators, with calls to 0845 numbers generally costing between 2-5 pence per minute from a landline during the day, while similar calls to 0870 numbers cost between 6-10 pence per minute.19 While such rates may not appear exorbitant, the amounts charged are usually in excess of calls made to geographic numbers, and where protracted calls are involved the costs for customers can soon mount. Lengthy calls are far from isolated incidents. Since many calls last longer than 30 minutes many customers will have incurred between 60 pence and £1.50 just for making this call (depending on the exact charges levied by their landline provider). Unsurprisingly, many customers are unhappy with these costs. Fifty eight percent of the people who completed the Adviceguide survey stated that they were dissatisfied with the costs involved, with only 15 per cent claiming they were satisfied with the charges. In addition, the survey conducted by Ipsos MORI revealed that almost one in three people (31 per cent) who had called a utility company in the last 12 months were annoyed about the cost of making the call. This compares to just 22 per cent for those who called financial institutions and 24 per cent who called retailers or government agencies. Customers who must use their mobile phone to call their utility company on a pay-as-yougo or contract basis generally get an even worse deal. Not only are non-geographic numbers like 0845 or 0870 numbers rarely included in the free minutes which mobile users may benefit from, but the costs of calling these numbers are also significantly higher than from a landline. Costs vary by mobile phone provider as shown in Table 2. Calls from a mobile phone to 0845 or 0870 numbers generally cost between 15-25 pence per minute, though some providers charge much more or fail to provide transparent pricing information for such calls. Even freephone (0800) numbers fail to live up to their name for mobile users since they will usually end up paying at least 15p per minute to call these ‘free’ numbers. Such charges can hit some of the poorest members of society hard, since consumers who do not have a landline connection and have only a mobile phone in their household are more likely to be in social grade DE and earn less than £11,500 a year.21 […] Footnotes: 19 See www.saynoto0870.com for a useful source of information on charges for calling non-geographic numbers. 20 Ibid. 21 The Consumer Experience 2007, Ofcom, November 2007, p.18

The document continues with a table showing call rates from various tariffs.