This is the email I sent to the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman on 17th June 2008:-
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Inappropriate Use of 0845 Number by Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:48:21 +0100
To: complaintsaboutphso@ombudsman.org.uk, trish.longdon@ombudsman.org.uk
CC: ann.abraham@ombudsman.org.uk, bill.richardson@ombudsman.org.uk, philip.aylett@ombudsman.org.uk
Dear Ms Longdon,
Inappropriate Continued Use of 0845 Contact Telephone Number by Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Contrary to the Recommendations of Ofcom, Sir David Varney and The Central Office of Information's Better Practice Guide for Government Contact CentresI wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's continued use of an 0845 telephone number (0845 015 4033) for contacting it despite the advice and recommendations of the Central Office of Information's Better Practice Guide for Government Contact Centres (Third Edition) and Sir David Varney's report - Service Transformation - a better deal for citizens and businesses, a better deal for the taxpayer. The Ombudsman is also ignoring repeated advice from Ofcom that it would be most appropriate for public sector contact centres to switch to using its new 03 phone number range, although in the case of the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman there appears no good reason why your office could not simply display its underlying 020 geographic phone numbers since you do not appear to operate across multiple regional call centres (a primary reason historically in the government sector for using an 0845 non geographic number).
The reason 0845 is objectionable is because these numbers are excluded from inclusive bundled call plans such as BT's Unlimited Anytime Plan or TalkTalk's Talk 3 plan and are also not included in bundled mobile phone packages taken up by many mobile phone users who can make unlimited calls to numbers starting 01, 02 or 03 out of their bundled minutes allowance. However numbers commencing 080, 084 and 087 are not included in these packages and are always charged per minute in addition to their monthly mobile phone subscription. The most expensive mobile phone tariffs charge up to 40p per minute to call 0845 when in the UK. Also under Vodafone's Passport tariff deal one can call a normal UK number starting 01 or 02 out of bundled minutes plus a 75p service fee when roaming in many EU countries but a call to the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman's 0845 number will cost 75p per minute + connection or a staggering £45.75 per hour to call while roaming in those same countries with the same phone. It is obviously possible to envisage some circumstances in which UK citizens might need to contact the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman whilst overseas.
The recommendations in Sir David Varney's report can be found in Chapter 7 of his report at
www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/4/F/pbr06_varney_review.pdf The chapter starts on P.53 of the report (P58 of the pdf file) and the most relevant recommendations about government contact centres are in paragraphs 7.24 and 7.30 of his report.
You can obtain a copy of the Central Office of Information's Better Practice Guide for Government Contact Centres (Third Edition) at
www.coi.gov.uk/documents/gcc-third-edition.pdf If you refer to paragraph 3.51 on p35 of the guide (p36 of the PDF file) onwards you will see that there is a large amount of material there that is relevant with respect to the use of the 0845 number by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and why your use of 0845 is likely to impose arbitrary and excessive costs on many callers, including the poorest members of society who often do not have access to a landline phone and instead use Pay As You Go mobile phones. As discussed these Pay As You Go mobile phones can charge up to 40p per minute to call 0845 on some tariffs. Yet a normal number starting 01, 02 or 03 can be called on the same Pay As You Go phones for as little as 15p for a call of up to 60 minutes at some times of day. This is not possible for 0845 numbers.
The other following references showing concerns about inappropriate use and misuse of 084 and 087 prefixed phone numbers may also be of assistance to you in your investigation:-
The view of a county council trading standards department about price misdescriptions of these numbers:-
See para 1.3 on page 1 of
www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/oftel_0845/responses/leicester_cc.pdf and
the view of the then CEO of BT Retail (now the new CEO designate of the whole of BT), Ian Livingston, regarding inappropriate use of 084 and 087 numbers:-
http://business.scotsman.com/business/BT-calls-on-Ofcom-to.2642029.jpand
two guidances from the Advertising Standards Authority
www.asa.org.uk/cap/news_events/news/2005/Hanging+on+the+telephone+on+and+on+and+...www.asa.org.uk/cap/news_events/news/2005/Stop+the+call+confusion.htm Cont/............