I have received the following emailed response to the petition.  Nothing really surprising in the response-it appears not much will change.


We received a petition asking:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to stop 0845 & 0870 Numbers in Government Departments.”

Details of Petition:

“Why does this Government allow the use of 0845 / 0870 numbers for their departments, also local Government? These numbers are not included in free minutes packages provided by telecoms providers. These numbers are often dialed by people who can least afford it I.e. People on benefits, disabled etc. Why should these people need to spend extra money to contact departments like the DWP. Especially when they are calling because that department has made a mistake.”

· Read the petition
· Petitions homepage

Read the Government’s response
Thank you for your e-petition.

The Government firmly believes that all citizens are entitled to easy and affordable access to public services and is aware of the potential cost of some number ranges to low income and disadvantaged callers. The responsibility for the use of different number ranges within the public sector and ensuring the costs are appropriate to the services and service users, is a matter for departments and other public sector organisations. However the Cabinet Office does maintain oversight of these issues through the Contact Council, a cross – government committee which addresses issues relating to contact between citizens business and the public sector.

When the 0800, 0845 and 0870 number ranges were first introduced they offered a fairer way of providing phone services to UK callers as they cost the same irrespective of where the caller was calling from in the UK. They also offered a way of varying call charges according to the services.  0800 numbers are free to call from landlines and suited to situations where a call may be long and/or the caller may not be easily able to meet the cost of the call.  0845 numbers are charged at standard national rate, suited to ‘normal’ enquires where it is reasonable for the caller to pay for the cost of the call. However, this cost varies with phone service providers.

0870 numbers offer a similar facility to 0845 numbers and once again the cost to the customer of calling these numbers varies with providers. When calls are made from mobile telephones the costs are invariably higher depending on the telephone ‘package’.  Initial work conducted by the Contact council suggests that all of the above numbers, including 0800 numbers, can cost up to 40p per minute when called from a ‘pay as you go’ mobile telephone. 

The Contact Council is currently analyzing the different number ranges in use by central and local government departments, with the intention of recommending a coherent cross-government approach for the future on the use of available number ranges - including ‘0845 and 0870’.  Given the complexity of the telecoms market and the range of packages available both to callers and the organisations being called there is no immediately obvious solution to the issue of number use and call costs.  However, as a step towards this guidance, the Council will shortly be issuing a ‘Statement of Clarification’, outlining the charging mechanisms associated with each number range.  This should help provide transparency in relation to the cost to the customer of calling these numbers. The primary focus of this work is to ensure that citizens are given easy and affordable access to public services irrespective of their circumstances. This includes consideration of the impact that choice of number will have on callers using mobile phones. 

Departments are already taking action to address the issue of call costs.  For example, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) policy is that calls to claim benefits should be free, and are therefore handled on 0800 numbers which are free to callers using landlines.  All other service lines use 0845 numbers which charge callers a standard rate that varies depending on the caller’s service provider and mobile network. 

There is currently no charging arrangement available which allows DWP to offer completely free calls to customers with mobiles.  But DWP mitigates this problem by providing a ‘call back’ to customers who request one so that the department absorbs the cost of the call.  The department is also piloting an approach whereby agents proactively offer to call the customer back if they are calling from a mobile.

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Tags: public services, telephone numbers


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