Well done Paul.  I'm in his adjacent constituency, in South East Cornwall, and hope that Colin Breed, also a Lb Dem will take the view as seriously as Paul.

Hi, I am new to the forum but not new to the subject!

There is no doubt that "You and Yours" (BBC Radio 4) is our best friend at the moment, it must have taken some guts for a programme that actualy used 0870 to take up our cause.

Welcome also to Paul Tyler, lets hope he keeps it up.

The most worrying thing about the programme was the progress report on the infiltration of our doctors surgerys by the likes of Alistair Campbell & Co.

Basically he works for a company called NEG who are ringing up all the Doctors in the UK, offering to put in a new telephone exchange for nothing, provided said GP changes his number to 0870. The doctor pays nothing, but the patients do by the cost of the calls.

There is considerable hope that the Ministry of Health will step in on this and make it illegal.

J

Quote:


Done a bit of research myself, and the Local Government Act 2003 allows 'best value' authorities (i.e. including local authorities) to charge for providing dicretionary services.  So presumably OK under this Act to use 0845/0870 for advice lines unless the authority is under a duty (rather than merely permitted) to provide the service.

See http://www.local.dtlr.gov.uk/guidprop.pdf