NGMsGhost wrote on Dec 30
th, 2009 at 10:59am:
Then why have various bodies that were misled in to using 0845 a number of years ago such as Surrey County Council or various Police forces or the DVLA or even Companies House (largely only providing business to business services) now switched to using 0345 but NHS Direct has not?
The question posed is about why the NHS Direct NHS Trust uses 03xx numbers for some services and 0845 for others.
NGMsGhost wrote on Dec 30
th, 2009 at 10:59am:
... This suggest to me that such characteristics of obstinacy and unwillingness to change are not universally found in all organisations and that some organisations are prepared to admit to their error and apply the appropriate corrective action.
... This suggests to me that whilst these characteristics are found in all administrations, and that this should never be taken as proof that change is impossible and unattainable. That is why we campaign.
Surely, it cannot be seriously suggested that senior personnel in the DVLA underwent a character transformation that turned them from obstinate villains into repentant heroes around the time that revenue sharing was withdrawn from 0870 numbers!
NGMsGhost wrote on Dec 30
th, 2009 at 10:59am:
At the back of all this confusion about the cost of phone calls are major failures of leadership by Ofcom, the Cabinet's Contact Council and the OFT, all of whom have been consistently lacking in leadership or clarity on this important consumer issue for which they variously carry primary policy making responsibility. With no clear lead from those bodies everything else that has gone on has been or more less utterly inevitable.
I am not sure what role the OFT has in setting the policies of public bodies. Its role is surely limited to the matter of price declarations, which are only relevant in situations where use of premium rate numbers is otherwise acceptable.
In providing the opportunity to use 03xx numbers with the accompanying regulations and in issuing guidance about the revenue sharing characteristics of 084x numbers, Ofcom and the Contact Council have respectively each made positive contributions. They have however failed to show the type of leadership that would have been necessary to gain swift and universal adoption of 03xx numbers in place of 084x, wherever the benefits of a non-geographic number necessitate such a change. Each claims, with some justification, that the limits of their role, and their capacity to to lead and direct, preclude the type of action that we would hope for and have demanded. In both cases however, it is acknowledged that there is more that can, and will, be done.
As we look forward and wish each other a Happy New Year, let us hope for the modest steady progress that is being made not to be halted by a new government showing a renewed commitment to consumerism. The consumerist model delivers public services that offer value for money to those who pay for them. My idea of a public service, most notably the NHS, is of one that is funded exclusively by taxation. This means that in delivering services one may not show any regard whatsoever for how the taxes are raised and cannot levy charges for access to services.
Consumerism makes use of revenue sharing telephone numbers acceptable, and even desirable as they strengthen the financial relationship between the provider and the consumer. Differential costs help in creating a market that offers choice. Consumerism cannot exist where the taxpayer is totally remote from the beneficiary of a public service.
The present government seems to be totally committed to the consumerist model, seeking to address the issue of 084x numbers by reference to the costs incurred by consumers of particular NHS services and, as a matter of even greater concern, the interests of particular consumer groups with reference to NHS car parking charges. Despite this, some modest progress has been made in recent years, although calls from the official opposition to embed the true fundamental principles of the NHS in statute have been disregarded.
In the spirit of posing silly questions, I ask:
can we hope for a new parliament that will produce a government more keen to transfer a cost burden from the public service user onto the deficit or the taxpayer?I see so-called "efficiency" savings as simply a way of reducing public expenditure without making obvious cuts in services, so I want to address the real money involved. The costs incurred in foregoing the financial benefits of revenue share on 084x numbers are modest, as is the higher cost that some service users would face by calling 03xx numbers rather than 0845 or 0844. People have however got very excited about much more modest amounts when these have been proposed as possible savings in public expenditure.
Contributors to this forum have been rightly swift to point out the failings of the present governmen., Looking at the political landscape from a purely saynoto0870 perspective it is difficult to see what possible general election outcome would be most favourable for the objectives that we share.
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