To whomever it concerns,

I hereby request under the Freedom of Information Act the geographical termination number (those beginning with 01 or 02) that your Tax Credits Helpline, 0845 3003 900, points to.

Your contact number that you ask us to ring (0845 3003 900) is translated to one or more geographical numbers and I hereby request you provide me with this information under the above act.

I’m requesting this information because the cost of having to call your 0845 number from a landline ACTUALLY costs more than calling a local or national geographical call and in fact calling a 0845 from a payphone or mobile can cost upto 30/40ppm.  I therefore think that by using an 0845 contact number is not in anyway of benefit to us public, therefore it is in the public interest to have your underlying geographical number and in fact acts as a "cost barrier" due to the excessive costs of ringing an 0845 and therefore may stop the public from ringing you.

I also noticed that you do not mention the cost of calling your 0845 number and this is now misleading according ASA/CAP (Advertising Standards Authority) and OfCOM because you can no longer remain silent on the cost of calling an 0845 as it is no longer classed as a 'local' call.

Since over 2 years ago, BT removed the difference between local rate calls and national rate calls and they now cost the same.  For example, calling from London to Scotland costs the exact same amount as calling from London to Essex - and that is 3ppm daytime (5.5p for upto an hour at evening & weekends) but yet ringing a 0845 costs more.

Also, as you may or may not be aware that not all operators outside the UK will allow connection to a UK NGN (non-geographical number) beginning with 084x/087x.  Although it may be rare to receive calls from abroad it is possible that I (and other people) whilst on holiday abroad may have cause to ring you for which depending on the operator may be impossible.

Due to these access problems and cost of calls from some networks, the Home Office has announced that they will be releasing a geographical number to the general public instead of their current NGN and in the future the Casualty Bureau helpline (god forbit it should be needed again) will be a freephone number (free for most of the public) and a geographical number for those calling abroad and for those calling from payphones/mobiles.

Also, are you aware of the new revised edition of Central Office of Information guidelines and I quote the following paragraph from it:-

"(2) 0845 in particular has been known as ‘local rate’ – however with increased competition in the marketplace and resultant changes in tariff structures, these rates will often be in excess of normal local rates that citizens might be charged on their package. 0845 (and 0844) costs through phone boxes and some mobile tariffs can also be expensive to the citizen and this should also be considered."

For further information on the ASA’s decision that remaining silent on the cost of the call or advertising your 0845 number as ‘local’ rate is now classed as misleading and can be read here:-

http://www.cap.org.uk/cap/advice_online/ad_alerts/Advertising+0845+and+087+numbe...

and here:-

http://www.asa.org.uk/cap/news_events/news/2005/hanging+on+the+telephone+on+and+...

In brief, and taking into consideration my points above, here is the information I request:-

1.  What is the geographical number that your 0845 3003 900 points to (terminates at)?

2.  Does the 0845 3003 900 point to (terminate at) more than one geographical number?

2.1 If yes, then what other geographical numbers does the 0845 terminate at (including their area)?

3.  What was your reasons for the introduction of your 0845 number when it does not offer any benefit to us public (local rate and national rate no longer exist and calls actually cost the same) but an 0845 in most cases costs more (upto 30/40ppm depending on terminating network) and acts as a "cost barrier" as mentioned previously?

4.  Do you receive any revenue from the use of this number in anyway shape, or form (whether this is invested back in maintaining the call centre/switchboard or not)?

5.  Do you contribute in anyway to the use of this 0845 number? 5.1 If so, how much per minute?, and 5.2 What is the monthly/quarterly rental charge?

If you have any further queries/clarification then please don’t hesitate contact me.

As per the Freedom of Information Act (2000) guidelines I look forward to your response within 20 working days.

I don't think you'll get very far to be honest as I said originally.

Well... I dont think they are going to respond, I phones them on friday but they say they did not get any letters from me,

How do I take this further as they have breached the FoI act

Re: Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

Dear Mr ****

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 of the 30th October. I am writing to confirm that I am now in a position to reply to your request.

However, in order to fully respond to your request it may help if I first explain the principles behind using a 0845 number and associated service. Firstly, they are used to provide a low cost call tariff and will in the main be cheaper than calling a national rate number. Using the 0845 prefix enables us as an organisation to provide better customer service by recording call statistics, providing a call queuing function, playing automated announcements providing customer information and allocating calls by requesting that customers choose various options.

Unfortunately, geographical number prefixes such as 0191, 0207 or 0114 do not have the same facilities and flexibility as the 0845 service. In addition, if Jobcentre Plus were to move back to utilising geographic numbers, our customers who call from mobiles or do not have bundled services packages will continue to be subject to tariff variations similar to the current 0845 service in operation today. Additionally to these limitations, advertising additional local numbers for the large number of Benefit Delivery Centres being implemented over the coming months will no doubt be confusing for customers, difficult to manage and the Department would be liable for the cost of re-routing large volumes of misplaced calls.

Benefit Delivery Centres have been designed to provide our customers with efficient, accurate and prompt payments in response to a claim for benefit. To this aim customer enquiries are routed to specialist teams so that staff processing benefit claims can concentrate on achieving these outcomes. As can be seen, a return to utilising direct dial geographical numbers would have a detrimental impact to the level of customer service that Jobcentre Plus is able to provide, without providing any call cost benefits to our customers.

It should also be emphasised that Jobcentre Plus and its parent Department are unable to influence the call charges implemented by mobile telephone network operators to 0800 and 0845 numbers as they are utilised by other organisations as well as Government Agencies, We are also unable to dictate whether a customer contacts Jobcentre Plus via a mobile telephone or from a landline, as this is down to individual freedom of choice.

Jobcentre Plus is committed to providing our customers with the highest standard of services available, and like you we appreciate that a significant proportion of our customers are some of the most vulnerable in society. Therefore the free phone '0800’ for Crisis Loan applications will continue to be available, supporting those in greatest need.

You will no doubt be aware of a recent OFCOM 'Numbering Review' consultation, which considers the introduction of a new ‘03' prefix in the UK dial plans. In effect, this service prohibits network operators from 'tariff sharing’ therefore if implemented this would deliver cheaper call tariffs to public bodies presently relying on 0845 numbers. The Department for Work and Pensions, and in particular Jobcentre Plus have been pro-active in the consultation, and would welcome a move towards this new number range.

The information you requested under the Act is as follows.

The geographical phone number for JSA changes is 0114 259 0505.

The geographical phone number for Income Support changes is 0114 259 0392.

It should be noted that these numbers are subject to change.

Across the Department as a whole, it received approximately £268,000 in the financial year 2005/2006. All of this was invested back into services. Further to this information you may be interested in the attached newspaper article.

Thank you for providing this feedback. We take your concerns seriously as we are continuously seeking to improve our customer service.

I trust that I have satisfactorily addressed the queries you raised however should you require anything further please do not hesitate to contact me again.

Yours sincerely

Mr A A Allwood

Sheffield Benefit Delivery Centre
Freedom of Information Officer