From a very quick reading, this looks to me like complete victory on the point of principle. The BBC has been found to be under a legal duty (imposed in the FOI Act) to release all known geographic equivalents for its non-geographic numbers.

The whole point about FOI in this type of situation is not that the body has to wait for a decision by the Information Tribunal, the ICO, or even a formal request. These are just the mechanisms that have to be used when information that should be published in the normal course of events is being withheld.

I would suggest that an approach to the BBC, at a senior level, to ask how it proposes to now act in the light of this decision would be a very simple task for any member, or indeed any journalist. The consultation by the DH has made the issue topical, as has an issue with phone calls to the BBC last weekend. I suspect that someone in the media would wish to run with it.

One hopes that this would force the BBC to consudct an immediate review of its policy with regard to all non-geographic numbers, leading to adoption of 03 or geo numbers throughout the coporation. This could be alongside already well-known numbers with proper price information.

Quote:


How are we supposed to trust the Information Commissioner to do things properly when they can't even get the name of the BBC right? To find the British Broadcasting Company, you have to go back to 1926!!!

jrawle wrote on Dec 20^th, 2008 at 2:30pm:



Weird that, as all correspondence to me, including a covering letter with the hard copy of the Decision Notice, calls it "British Broadcasting Corporation", although the actual hard copy DN does state as the website "British Broadcasting Company"

The Decision Notice was dated 11th December 2008, the 35 days expired on 15th January 2009,on the 16th January I e-mailed the ICO informing that I had not been furnished with he info re the DN. I was told they would contact the BBC and get back to me.

On the 22nd January  Richard Lawanson, (IC caseworker), e-mailed me with; -

Yesterday, (Wednesday), as the BBC had not complied, I e-mailed R. Lawanson again and requested  the following; -  
I request that you invoke bullet point 49 of the Decision Notice as, in my opinion, they are clearly in contempt of court!

49.


I received the following; -



The numbers are probably academic now,(re the 03 number use), but it does go to show that the BBC think they are above everyone including the IC!

Lets see if the IC dares to take legal action!

Well it has arrived, but we do not know what they do or did relate to,(they will not give any more info as they have complied with the DN, so NGNsGhost and SCV don't ask ), unless anyone still has the relevant numbers to compare with!



Mr * *****
By email to: ***************


30 January 2009


Dear Mr ******,


ICO Decision Notice FS50133140 (Original BBC Ref: RFI2006000462)

I refer to the Information Commissioner’s Decision Notice of 11 December 2008, regarding your request to the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”) of 31 July 2006, asking a series of questions about the BBC’s use of 0870 numbers.

The ICO accepted that the BBC does not hold the information you sought regarding non-geographic numbers accompanied by a call plan, but required that the BBC disclose to you the equivalent geographic number of our non-geographic numbers not accompanied a call plan.  
Please see below the 31 numbers referred to in the Decision Notice, as at the date of your request, being 31 July 2006.  


      NGN                                                                CallPlan  
    (Prefix with '0')                       TAD                  Y or N?

1  8700100088                    02074650264                 N
2  8700100180                    02085760639                 N
3  8700100500                    02076495512                 N
4  8700100611                    01413075974                 N
5  8700100612                    02074650264                 N
6  8700100613                    02074650264                 N
7  8700100700                    02074650264                 N
8  8700100720                    01386421129                 N
9  8700100882                    01214329956                 N
10  8700100883                  02087438000                 N
11  8700100884                  02087494272                 N
12  8700101010                  01204770270                 N
13  8700102867                  01386421129                 N  
14  8700102897                  01214328958                 N
15  8700106676                  02082258222                 N
16  8700107070                  02076490636                 N
17  8700108891                  01216060323                 N
18  8703332772                  01787223300                 N
19  8703333046                  02087524777                 N
20  8703334988                  02087527973                 N
21  8703336000                  02074650071                 N
22  8709002155                  02072089039                 N
23  8709002626                  02076495634                 N
24  8709003550                  02076495633                 N
25  8709008833                  01413075973                 N
26  8709009595                  02089141820                 N
27  8709022002                  02074650264                 N
28  8709022003                  01619532003                 N
29  8709030304                  02890535990                 N
30  8709090225                  02087494272                 N
31  8709090555                  02920323782                 N

We apologise for the delay in releasing this information to you.  When collating the information a question was raised as to whether any further numbers were in existence at that time and we sought confirmation of this from a number of our third party suppliers.  We apologise that this has taken longer than we would have wished.  It has been determined that, in addition to the 31 numbers listed above, that the TVL ‘Minicom’ number of 0870 575 8604 was also in use.  Its geographical equivalent was: 0117 302 1400.

I hope you find this information useful.

Kind regards,


Stephanie Simmonds
Senior Advisor
BBC Information Policy and Compliance

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jan 30^th, 2009 at 1:42pm:



Are you volunteering?  

This took 2½ years!

NGMsGhost wrote on Jan 30^th, 2009 at 2:12pm:


Do you actually think that they would?

With this FOI they have lied and refused relevant information to be disclosed both to the IC, and myself, and continued to flout the IC’s authority, by not disclosing until 3 weeks after the time limit re the DN had expired.

They would probably have some excuse that because the radio stations, (as that is where the majority of 0845 numbers are), are somewhat "independant" we would need to request from each and every radio station fro the geo numbers, or that the numbers are "accompanied by a call plan", and if so will not need to disclose them.

derrick wrote on Jan 30^th, 2009 at 2:23pm:

Their FOI website (www.bbc.co.uk/foi/)suggests a centralised approach for all FOI requests to the BBC but why not make one and find out?  If the FOI comes in under your name they are far more likely to roll over as they now know you are tenacious and will not give up.

If I make one they might not think I am aware of my rights to appeal to the ICO etc, etc.