I have an idea which I'd like to propose.

In the same way in which companies claim to be "ISO" compliant (a quality standard), carbon-neutral or whatever, some sort of label (perhaps "phone fair") could be devised which showed that the particular organisation had chosen to follow an open and transparent telephone numbering policy which was not designed to be profit generating.

In order to obtain this, the company would have to satisfy certain minimum standards regarding numbering, to include, most obviously, having a policy of publishing a geographic alternative wherever they published a non-geographic number.   Perhaps also, always printing the cost of dialling such a number  from landlines and mobiles would be desirable.

In conjunction with the above, there could also be a "rogues gallery", where we "name and shame" (giving specific details) what are considered to be the worst offenders in terms of numbering policy.

This data could then be aggregated into a set of tables sorted by type of company - so that if someone was considering (for example) buying car insurance, they could easily find out which car insurers were "phone fair", and which were in the rogues gallery, and use this information in their buying decision.

The problem for many people is that they only find out that the company they are dealing with uses non-geo numbers once they are a customer, by which time it is too late or inconvenient to change. If the public could access this information in a simple and easily digestible manner as part of their evaluation, the impact would be much greater.  Once a company thought it might lose business by being in the "rogues gallery" they may well reconsider their policy, and strive for the "phone fair" label.

It has also occured to me that ultimately this may be something that Which and other consumer review organisations may want to include in their reviews.

I look forward to hearing what others think of this idea.

Perhaps a practical suggestion would be for the website to make annual awards to the "hero" and "villain" of the year. We could start here with nominations from which the moderators could make an arbitrary selection of the award winners.

I would have liked to nominate Ofcom for introducing 03, as a genuine and noble, if under-promoted, attampt to restore transparency and for having adopted 03 numbers itself. Unfortunately its reputation was ruined by unnecessarily giving in to what it saw as blackmail by those who wished to prevent their customers from using alarm systems. My nomination is therefore transferred to the RSPCA as one of the first to adopt 03 numbers.

For me, the villain is undoubtedly NEG, for not only spreading bare-faced L... misleading information about telephone charges, but also for encouraging NHS GPs to breach the terms of their contracts in the year before we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the NHS.