Hello again.

It's difficult to answer the previous string as my previous answers are still the answers I would be giving. We may have to accept that we have a difference of opinion.

You may already be aware that I am fully up to speed with the recommendations of the Varney Report and the discussions, changes in advise and real world events that have occured since the report was published as I hold a seat on the Cabinet Office Contact Council, which reports into Sir David. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/public_service_reform/contact_council.aspx

The recommendation to move to the 03 number range has been foremost on my mind this year, however, as I have stated, contractual problems within the telecoms industry have so far prevented us moving across our number. These contactual problems will not exist for all organisations, which is one of the reasons why some have moved numbers and some haven't to date.

I am pleased to hear that the 020 number worked well for you, I will ensure that it is kept available until such time as we have fully tested it for sound quality and resiliance and assuming it passes will work to make it more promenant.

You may be interested to know that for a lot of this year I have been speaking at public sector conferences to ensure that the Varney recommendations are widely known, including the switch away from 08 numbers, so am very much on the side of this forum, which is what I am doing here in the first place.

Surrey County Council is working to implement Varney recommendations, some of which are challenging to achieve in what our residents would consider reasonable timescales, however, please be assured that they are happening.

Simon

Just to say I have now rec'd an email from the CEO at SCC as follows:

Dear Keith,

Can I thank you for your emails and for drawing to my attention inaccuracies on the
Surrey County Council's website with regard to the use of our 0845 telephone
number. I asked for the information to be reviewed and changes were made straight away to reflect our latest understanding of the situation.

As you may have seen, the page in question now reads as follows:

..........

Thank you for raising these concerns.  I hope you find our response satisfactory. 
We shall be happy to go into more detail with you about the issues involved if you
wish.

Yours sincerely

Richard Shaw

Richard Shaw
Chief Executive
Surrey County Council
0208 541 9008

Again I have to say I am impressed with this response and have emailed back saying so.

ALTHOUGH I have only just become aware from reading copies of personal messages that the Geo number has not gone on to the Contact Us page and the reason given is that they don't want people to become dependent upon this number in case they have to relocate (I assume in an emergency) and the numbers becomes unusable (whereas the 0845 number won't). I don't think this is a good excuse as if both numbers are made available and the Geo one doesn't work then the other can be used.

As I wasn't party to that correspondance can I suggest NGM Ghost that you make that point to them.

Simon,

Your continued support on this is much appreciated - if only we could encourage all the other councils and public services to be honest and switch to 01/02/03 numbers, then we'd be much happier .

While I realise that you will have stringent rules on the various numbers you run, that they must meet your quality assurance tests and all that, I'm sure the general public will be happy with the 02 number being published, but made obviously aware that it might change in future (and that they will have to dial the 0845 number in that case).

Simon_From_Surrey wrote on Apr 29^th, 2008 at 4:08pm:


This is obviously because you have to toe a stock Surrey County Council propaganda line rather than being allowed to deal with the reality that Surrey County Council is trying to delay, delay and delay again and blame other parties for its own procrastination.

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Its a shame whoever wrote the revised item on your website does not seem to be up to speed then. Where did the November 2007 date come from?  Its not in the Varney report.

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Get a new 0300 number and stop trying to get an 0345 one that is the same as your old 0845 number (the public doesn't give a damn what the number is so long as it doesn't cost extra to call) and pay the contractual break penalties and you can undoubtedly have an 0300 number in operation within a month at most.

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Why isn't it shown on the Home Page on your website or under Contact Us as an alternative to the 0845?  The only thing that seems to have changed is that if members of the public complain to your contact centre staff they have now finally stopped repeatedly cynically breaking the law (Consumer Protection Act 1987 Part III - Misleading Price Indications) by claiming that it is only a "local rate call" and now offer anyone who complains your new hidden 020 number as an alternative.  This shows that the old "0845 is only a local rate call sir/madam" response was also a trained response, even though it was breaking the law.

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A shame then that despite your awareness of the disadvantages to the public you still haven't yet managed to get the 020 number clearly shown as an alternative on your website!

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They are not at all challenging to achieve.  They just require Surrey County Council to put its residents rather than its bank balance first.  It was your mistake as a County in agreeing to the 0845 deal so you must pay the costs of extricating yourselves from it.  Yes I realise this means it will be spread across all Council Tax payers but this is fairer than those citizens who regularly need to phone the council (eg those needing adult social care) running up huge additional covert premium rate phone call costs.

jgxenite wrote on May 1^st, 2008 at 9:36am:


Has he emailed you to say that then?  He hasn't posted to that effect on this website?  I wonder if their contact centre won't melt down (no call stats etc) if they begin to receive a large number of calls on the 020 number.

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Might take 2 days (email to their website contractor needed) rather than 2 hours then.  Even listing it as an International Number with +44 20 would be an improvement.  Even though I do not approve of such subterfuge to try and con the less informed members of the public in to still using 0845.

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If Simon can arrange for this 020 number to be publicised now then why did this not happen four years ago.  Simon seems a decent chap but it does not affect the unacceptable anti resident policy that Surrey County Council as a whole has knowingly been pursuing for the last four years or more while little Mole Valley District Council did the right thing by its residents.

Also note that their Contact Centre staff repeatedly lied that 0845 was "only a local rate call" if the public ever dared complain about the use of the 0845 number to its staff.

Call me simplistic but as Surrey County Council is based in Kingston Upon Thames and has decided to stay in Kingston Upon Thames then why does it not want to use an 020 8 prefixed number as these do not seem to be as fraught with the same cost or technical issues as 03 numbers.

It is perfectly possible to have a voip number on 020 8 that can be redirected anywhere and not use 03 at all.  The extra ripoff costs to either the caller (084/7) or the called party (03) associated with the whole NTS telco moneyspinning system can then be avoided.

03 numbers are faceless and break the local geographical number link for councils so as there are no longer any cost disadvantages of an 01 or 02 number then why can Surrey County Council not use one of those instead?

jgxenite wrote on May 1^st, 2008 at 10:04am:


Surrey County Council are based in Greater London in the London Borough of Kingston Upon Thames.  This is because this area was in Surrey prior to the revision of local government boundaries and the expansion of Greater London in the early 1970s.  They have a huge and splendid building there so why move.  They had a white elephant project to move to Woking but then it was going to cost a fortune and it looked New Labour might abolish the County Councils so the plan was shelved.

So 020 8 is the correct local number for Surrey County Council.  I don't know where their call centre is.  It might be at County Hall in Kingston or it might be somewhere else.  03 numbers are only really needed where you have complex multiple call centres at different sites and rerouting and load balancing between them like NHS Direct.  As I understand it Surrey County Council only has a single call centre so doesn't an 03 number.  Also complex rerouting etc can be done with an 020 voip number.  The Foreign & Commonwealth Office only uses geographic 020 numbers but has call centres and switchboards all over the place.  They took a policy decision to stick with using geographic numbers rather than get their shiny new switchboard or outgoing call costs secretly funded by the hidden revene stream on 084/7 calls.

For what it is worth I think this is a case of 'job done'. After all if you had come across this site as it is now we would never have raised an eyebrow about it. Let's move on.

Surely we should be focusing on the masses of appalling examples out there.