The charity organising donations via the 0870 number, probably plough all profits from this, and interest from money left into accounts, into their work.

Sometimes not all the money given goes direct to help, because of admin costs, such as bank charges, or credit card fees, but sometimes banks do waive charges in these situations.

What we should however ask, is whether the company providing the 0870 number is donating any of it's profits to the cause, or providing revenue at a higher rate, as a gesture of goodwill to the cause.

Also, will other telecoms companies, that carry 0870 calls (mainly BT and mobile phones) donate anything from their profits of that number?

The use of 0870 by DEC is simply because these numbers are now all pervasive; virtually every aspect of telephone use now requires 0870, from government to banking, from customer support to sales, from rail accidents to natural disasters. The DEC is simply jumping on the NGN band wagon and probably believes it to be "sexy" to have such a number. It is disgraceful and a sad indictment on what is happening in the UK. It also demonstrates the complete ineffectiveness of the so-called regulator. Just who does Ofcom serve?

The Disaster Emergency Commison is a public body covered by the Freedom of Information Act.

Ask them the questions by letter or email and include your name and address.

They must reply in 20 working days.

I see no problem in being critical of the DEC operating a revenue-generating number. Such numbers not only generate revenue for the recipient (DEC) or its provider (BT), but additional revenue to the providing operator due to the uplift in charge. Can we be sure that all additional revenue from all operators will be passed on? Of course not. BT could easily provide, at no cost to the DEC, a call center terminating on a geographic number. After all, it did this before these rip-off numbers ever came into being. Whilst the use of geographic numbers also creates revenue somewhere in the chain, it is nowhere near as significant as that contributed by 0870.

Regarding the FCO, the emergency 020 number is not to be used, according to the FCO, for travel queries - the 0870 number must be used for that advice! That clearly makes contact from overseas difficult. Why do those that provide these services seem to be so utterly stupid? Why does the UK have clueless government? The US Department of State has a toll-free number for those that live in the United States and a normal area code for those trying to call from overseas.  Why can't the FCO provide the same facilities for its citizens? Probably because it doesn't give a toss about them.

I fear only a rumour - certainly about any effectiveness

It has been mentioned here that "BT are usually generous when it comes to charity ", but they subsidise none of the thousands of calls made to The Samaritans each year.  They must make an enormous amount of money out of this.

Wonderful forward thinking?

So that future donations can be part of a habit without, necessarily, the Operators' generosity...