Hi All,

In response to my (and idb's) failed FOI request and an internal review by Thames Valley Police (see here) for the release of a geographical alternative, I plan on taking this to the Information Commissioner same as idb.

My main argument for the release of a geographical number is the associated costs involved in ringing from a payphone/mobile.

TVP must get a lot of enquiries on their non-emergency number from us joe public whilst out and about (ie calling from mobiles and in some cases payphones) but what I need are examples of what they would get called about when people are out and about.

I've come up with a few ideas as detailed below:-

• Non-emergency RTC (Road Traffic Collision)
  
• Debris and other ad-hoc things blocking dual-carriageways, some motorways, etc
  
• Flooded roads on dual carriageways
  
• Possibly stolen and abandoned vehicles, etc

Can anyone else thing of some other reasons why the police would get calls whilst we are mobile?

Thanks in advance.

wrote on Sep 30^th, 2005 at 7:57am:

Can anyone else thing of some other reasons why the police would get calls whilst we are mobile?

Following a particularly dreadul murder in North Wales NWPolice have published two 0845 contact numbers (one English, one Cymraeg) - as the only contact numbers on the poster.
And many people now only use a mobile, although I can not recall the proportion.
So, in an attempt at returning to try to answer your question, any reason to contact one's police force is likely to be made from a mobile.
Perhaps not the place to comment about the cones hotline?

Road Rage?
Criminal Damage to car while at work? (sod that work can pay for the 0845).

Dont try the major motorway option as youd call 999 for an object on a high speed road as its "a matter of life and death or could cause serious injury".

Flaming Cars?
next door neighbours arguing about broken flowerpots at 4 in the morning.

Why do you need to confine this to mobile and payphones bbb, disgusting though those call rates to 0845 obviously are.

The fact is that to report something like fraudulent use of a credit card on the phone to the Police can take 20 to 25 minutes and the Police run a 24/7 service for reporting non emergency crimes.

So if you call about your credit card fraud, your vandalised car or whatever in the evening or the weekend then a 20 minute call to 0845 will be 60p from a BT landline compared to 5.5p to an ordinary 01 or 02 number or indeed zero p to an 01 or 02 for anyone on BT Options 2 or 3.

So because the Police run 24/7 its very easy to win the 0845 cost argument, even on a BT home landline.  Obviously for an outfit open 9am to 5pm Mon to Fri then its only  BT Option 3 customers or equivalents for whom 0845 is very bad news but the police are open all the time.

Its interesting to hear the Police blocking you over this.  Did you not refer them to Pito - www.pito.org.uk and the Met London bombings helpline where Pito/the Met did force Cable & Wireless to release a a geographic number after 24 hours.  And bearing in mind that Pito advises all uk police forces on telephony I bet this is another Cable & Wireless deal.  Given that Cable & Wireless are also at the back of the BBC 0870 scam and I rather suspect Cable & Wirless NGN contracts are especially vicious about the consequences of the client disclosing a geographic alternative number.

I have long delayed an FOI to Surrey Police but the news that 0845 scamming is to continue for a long time and your own recent difficulties with getting the Police to disclose the geographic number now encourage me to do so.

Or has idb also FOI'd Surrey Police already?  Just how many uk governmental and quasi governmental bodies are you pursuing idb?   It seems to run wider than just those bodies that you actually use the services of from what I can see?

wrote on Sep 30^th, 2005 at 7:46pm:

Or has idb also FOI'd Surrey Police already?  Just how many uk governmental and quasi governmental bodies are you pursuing idb?   It seems to run wider than just those bodies that you actually use the services of from what I can see?

Haven't looked at Surrey yet; I am still dealing with the Hertfordshire lot:

FOI request submitted June 22, 2005
FOI reminder submitted July 20, 2005
Tomorrow is October and still no response
Complaint sent to IC on July 22, 2005

The silence from Herts is shocking. So typifies UK public bodies.

wrote on Sep 30^th, 2005 at 7:55pm:

The silence from Herts is shocking. So typifies UK public bodies.

I'm not so convinced about all public bodies being bad but it certainly does typify the arrogance of a lot of uk Police forces who consider themselves to generally be above the law.  Unfortunately senior Policemen do not have to stand for re-election.

Leave Surrey Police to me.  I will probably copy in members of the Surrey Police Authority at the same time as several are county councillors for whom I have personal email addresses.  I find copying in county councillors usually gees things up a bit.  I also have the personal email address of the Chairman of Surrey Police Authority.  The Surrey Police website still uses the words Lo-Call against their 0845 number but then so of course does every such call listing on a BT phone bill.  Has anyone trawled through the 250 pages of new consultation yet to see if there is any proposal to stop the use of the terms Lo-Call, Local Rate, National Call and National Rate against 0845 and 0870 numbers?  If not Ofcom deserve to be hung, drawn and quartered over this.

I suggest you email these guys notifying them of the Chief Constable's incompetence and of your need to appeal to the Information Commissioner.

http://www.herts-police-authority.org.uk/who%20we%20are/who%20we%20are.htm

Of course I suppose you may just prefer to leave the IC appeal running as the Chief Constable will probably get more of an official bollocking that way.

But is the Information Commissioner's office itself not also pretty dilatory and incompetence about a lot of your communications.  Or do they seem to what it actually says that they do on the tin?

wrote on Sep 30^th, 2005 at 8:10pm:

I suggest you email these guys notifying them of the Chief Constable's incompetence and of your need to appeal to the Information Commissioner. http://www.herts-police-authority.org.uk/who%20we%20are/who%20we%20are.htm Of course I suppose you may just prefer to leave the IC appeal running as the Chief Constable will probably get more of an official bollocking that way. But is the Information Commissioner's office itself not also pretty dilatory and incompetence about a lot of your communications.  Or do they seem to what it actually says that they do on the tin?

Thanks for the link - I certainly will contact the Police Authority on Monday. My faith in the IC has dropped significantly. It has failed to respond to progress requests relating to UKPA and Herts Police complaints. It seems to be an impotent body. It claims that it has far too much work! Now, it doesn't take the brain of Britain to realize that if legislation comes into force on Jan 1, 2005 giving the public access to FOI, and also provides a method for resolution of complaints, then you need the staff to handle such complaints. Like Ofcom, its problems are of its own making.

wrote on Sep 30^th, 2005 at 9:08pm:

My faith in the IC has dropped significantly. It has failed to respond to progress requests relating to UKPA and Herts Police complaints. It seems to be an impotent body. It claims that it has far too much work!

Surely the problem is that the Freedom of Information Act 2000 doesn't specify fearsome fines and penalties for not responding in the required time scales and/or the IC hasn't been given the power to impose massive fines if they believe the delay is due to procrastination and obfuscation rather than due to genuine difficulty in collating the information required.

If the penalties for not complying with FOI requests were scary enough there wouldn't be so much work for the IC to do.

However in terms of running into refusals to provide information the IC probably will have more work to do than later on its life while the bounds on what has to be provided by organisations under the Act are established.  I suspect the legislation may also have to be amended to withdraw many of the exclusions that currently allow refusal to supply the requested information.

Im still waiting on herts to give me the response of my Internal Review outcome for the 27th September!

We now need somone to do a draft version of a complaint to the IC now.

For a long time I have lobbied against the use of none geographical numbers attempting to use the STD number where possible. I have even been in contact with I.C.S.T.I.S and ofcom but with no avial. You obviously have a more reliable contact and better information than myself and the service provided is excellent. I would like to assist where possible with the expansion of the service. I have carried out all the usual marketing procedures telling all my friends and colleagues about the service and introducing it to as many people as possible. If you feel that I amy be able to assist in any way I would appreciate it if you could contact me
Baz Ramsbottom on 01226 210893

I have researched none geographical numbers on the ofcom web site, they are in the process of disallowing commission to be earned on all none geographical numbers. It sound like a good idea on the face of it but even if the commissons are dissallowed the calls will still be metred and cost a fortune when calling these number. The main culprits are the large organizations that leave callers on hold for long periods of time.

wrote on Oct 1^st, 2005 at 10:29am:

I have researched none geographical numbers on the ofcom web site, they are in the process of disallowing commission to be earned on all none geographical numbers.

Baz,

Sadly Ofcom only propose imminent action to disallow commission on 0871 numbers as a non premium rate service.  Those services and the commissions earned will continue but eventually (such as in may be two years time) the providers may be forced to switch to an 09 number.

Ofcom do not propose to disallow 0844 and 0845 commission for a very long time, if at all, and on 0870 you will still be allowed to have commission as the receiving party as long as you add a call price announcement.

I fear you may have been rather misled by Ofcom's own quite deliberately misleading press announcement.  You need to read their 250 pages worth of consultation documents (or possible the summary documents for those longer documents) to uncover what they are really up to.

wrote on Sep 30^th, 2005 at 7:46pm:

Why do you need to confine this to mobile and payphones bbb, disgusting though those call rates to 0845 obviously are.

I'm concentrating on the mobile/payphone side of things because of the exessive costs and with them being a police force they would get a lot of calls from people on payphones/mobiles (mostly mobiles).  An 0845 costs 3ppm daytime (for most BT customers) the same as it does a local or national geographical (as you know) and because the queues are unlikely to be very long there isn't much loss for most of the public except those on inclusive packages or using Call18866/1899, etc.

I did quote them my usual standard FOI email which pointed out ASA/CAP, OfCOM and COI guidelines.  I even went on about the casualty bureau now going to operate a geographical and 0800 number from now on and I even mentioned the HomeOffice are now going to start using a geo (they've already updated their website and I'm assured that they will change their letterhead/stationary, etc the next time they order more stationary - all this happening over time).

Remember that most people are still probably on BT option 1 and therefore not using cheaper suppliers like Call18866/1899, etc so the 0845 isn't as a bigger deal than those ringing from a mobile/payphone.  Therefore I'm more likely to get a favourable response from the IC with regards to a call costing about 40ppm than one costing 3ppm!

I also believe the main reason for casualty bureau releasing a geo was that they didn't genuinely know that NGN calls from mobiles and payphones are around 40ppm especially as it is so difficult to get landline providers and mobile providers to display the cost of these calls on their website, etc.

I had success (without any problems) from Devon & Cornwall Constabulary in getting their geographical numbers (see here )

NGN is spot on with his observation that there are very valid reasons to use geographic numbers to contact the police via a fixed line.

Several years ago we reported a fraud to the East Sussex police who only publshed an 0845 number for non emergency contact. We made many calls and spent a lot of time waiting in the queue, mostly to no avail. Usually after a long wait the officer dealing with the case was not available and all we could do was leave a message, which needless to say was not answered. Although the money we spent on calls was not comparable to our loss, it was part of the reason why we give up trying to get the police to catch the culprit.

However, very off topic, but to give the East Sussex police their due. My daughter was hit by an uninsured driver. The police eventually traced this person, who was best described as itinerate, and established that he did have an insurance certificate, but it had been cancelled by his brokers. As it was longer than 6 months since the offence had been committed they could not prosecute but passed on the basic information to my insurance company, Direct Line. Almost one year on from the date of the crash Direct Line were still maintaining that they could not pay out on their uninsured driver promise, because he may have been insured with another company, and in order to establish this they needed to talk with him. Despite my protestations that if he had had valid insurance he would have produced this for the police, they insisted that they would have to keep trying to find this person. In exasperation I rang the East Sussex police and spoke with the officer who had interviewed him. I explained that I did not want to waste his time on such a trivial matter but that Direct Line were giving me the run around. I explained what they were doing and he went ballistic. He rang Direct Line on my behalf, I am not sure what he said, but when I rang the next morning they said they were writing out the check at this very minute.

So result! Also thanks to saynoto0870.com. I found the Geographic number for the East Sussex police here so the time spent navigating the Police phone system did not cost me anything.

Incidentally, Direct line have an uninsured driver guarantee "If you are hit by a driver that is uninsured, you will not lose your no claims bonus and it won't cost you a penny".
Two caveats to this -

1. You have to know that it exists, otherwise they stick to the line that you will only get your uninsured loss back when they have successfully taken the other driver to court.

2. A "hit and run"  does not count because the driver  may have been insured!!!

mikeparris

I'm glad you were able to get the money out of Direct Line. Your caveats illustrate however that they're a fully fledged member of the money for nothing, wriggle for Britain club.

But then, as a  Royal Bank of Scotland subsidiary (along with Natwest), I'm afraid you should expect nothing less - RBS companies are the most hypocritical around - serial, blatant and consistent 0870 abusers, among other things.

Their marketeers are completely lost in it - they've TV ads running currently with the punchline "My Bank's Having a Laugh"

Still haven't worked out whether these are meant to be self portraits, or whether they just never heard the advice about glass house residents throwing stones!!

Meanwhile, idb and mc661, I too am waiting for the Herts Police response from September 28 - I fully expect to have to go to the Information Commissioner. Given it takes them about 6 weeks to respond with their initial F... Off, I don't expect anything in writing sooner.

However, I look forward to using their incompetence and obstructiveness to date as ammunition from hereon!