We appreciate that it is the telecommunication company that make the money from the calls on 0845 numbers and that it is not always on a profit share basis but it still costs money to contact any service via an 0845 number.

Connection Charge
Price charged by the minute

If 01 02 or 03 numbers are used this is not the case and in most cases calls are included in call packages.

callers can still contact your service in question by using the alternative none geographical number

Please publish the 01 or 02 none geographical number and members will be able to contact the service via this alternative number.

You remind me of the need to put in a formal question on this to Surrey Police Authority at one of their future public meetings (see www.surreypa.gov.uk/ourpubmeet.asp) and to also brief local journalists in advance that a question will be asked on this matter.  This is the only way in which this issue will become a priority for Surrey Police and funding will be found to address it.

The repeated obstinate intransigence of Surrey Police's senior management on this matter is extremely disappointing (they cannot be unaware of it since I asked the Chief Constable a public question on the matter at the annual meeting of Surrey Police Authority around 6 years ago when I was still a district councillor which received press coverage at the time) given the switch of Surrey County Council's contact centre to 03 numbers and that their Contact Centre Manager responsible for their 03 number implementation project (Simon Pollock or SimonFromSurrey on this forum) told he would be trying to make clear to Surrey Police the current error of their ways.

Not only are these 0845 numbers not part of nearly all mobile phone providers bundled minutes but they also cost 10 times as much per minute to call from a BT Payphone.

This is something Surrey Police need reminding of when they prattle on about how 0845 numbers are cheaper in the weekday daytime to call than 01/02/03 numbers and/or go about how they are part of the inclusive minutes of BT's inclusive calling plans.

Most disappointing is that Surrey Police do actually have a geographic alternative number in the shape of their main switchboard at their Mount Browne HQ but they refuse to publish it anywhere on their website or in their official literature.

Here is the schedule for Surrey Police Authority's Public Meetings in 2011.

The one scheduled for Mole Valley on 28th March 2011 looks especially appropriate given my own location and my former connections with this local authority.

Quote:


If anyone else lives in or near Surrey and could go to one of the other meetings and ask a question on this issue I am sure that it would help Surrey Police Authority to get the message they must switch to an 03 number.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jan 25^th, 2011 at 12:15pm:


I note that a local district councillor asked the Chief Constable of Surrey Police a question about their justification for using an 0845 number for their contact centre instead of a geographic number as long ago as the June 2005 AGM of Surrey Police authority at Epsom Downs racecourse.

See www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/52717_calls_to_police_no_longer_local_rate

So in the circumstances it is rather hard to believe that any progress at all has actually been made in improving the understanding of this Police force and this Police Authority about how the public continue to be let down by Surrey Police over this particular issue.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jan 25^th, 2011 at 2:27pm:


When I submitted an FOI to this Police Force a year or more ago (in fact I see it was in Autumn 2009) asking for details of the name of their contracted telecoms supplier for the 0845 number and the amount of revenue they had earned from the 0845 number over several years and for copies of internal briefing papers and minutes involved in moving to the 0845 number when they opened their shiny new contact centre in about 2004 they refused to answer any of it by claiming this would cause them to need to examine all their custody records over several years and that this was prohibitively expensive.

When I got in touch with the FOI manager he told me this answer was a mistake and I would now get the information shortly but I never did.  Rather than chase him up it seems much easier to go to Surrey Police Authority's meeting and to ask the Chief Constable in a public forum why it is so hard to get them to respond to an FOI on these matters related to the 0845 number and why they continue to ignore the public interest (unlike other Police forces that have adopted an 0845 number) by continuing to use an 0845 number and why we are no further forward at all on these matters nearly six years on from my original question at the Surrey Police Authority meeting in June 2005.

loddon wrote on Feb 1^st, 2011 at 8:29am:



This site is proving to be so popular it has crashed

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1352354/Crime-map-Britain-Road-road-thug...