GOVERNMENT NETS £6 MILLION FROM CALL CHARGES AS TREASURY SAYS IT CAN’T COUNT

Research by Liberal Democrat Peer, Lord (Paul) Tyler this week revealed that government departments had netted over six million pounds from members of the public calling their “non-geographic” telephone lines, according to figures released in Parliamentary Answers. 

The telephone lines also offer a “revenue share” to the owners of the number, or to the private company operating it.  The numbers are said to be charged at “local” or “national” rates, but cost many times more to most telephone users.

The Department for Transport, for example, made £3.73m between September 2004 and September 2006 on calls to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea, and a further £1.82m for calls to book driving tests with the Driving Standards Agency.  The Department had said it was reviewing this practice in October 2005 but premium “national” rate 0870 numbers were still advertised on the DVLA and DSA websites this week for access to a range of services.

The Government’s own Central Office of Information warned departments not to use such telephone numbers because it says they “can act as a barrier to communicating information that the citizen should have access to as a right”.

Meanwhile, some government departments refuse to take their “revenue share” from the premium numbers, and instead allow the money to remain with the private company operating their telephone lines, while callers ratchet up inflated bills trying to get information.  The Department for Education and Skills, which is one such department, operates 35 of the lines, while the Department for Work and Pensions operates an astonishing 2299 of the numbers but cannot account for where the revenue has gone, or how much it was, before January 2006.

Lord Tyler asked questions of all Government departments in 2005, while MP for North Cornwall.  At that time, the Treasury claimed it received no revenue from premium 0870 numbers, but in new Parliamentary Answers it says it cannot provide the information without “disproportionate cost”.

Commenting, the Liberal Democrat Peer said:

“This is a diabolical tale of incompetent departments swindling citizens, who are entitled to free information, against the specific advice of the Government’s own COI.

“It is now more than two years since I first raised this issue in Parliament, and I have received repeated reassurances that Ministers will sort their departments out and follow the Government’s own guidelines.

“Instead, we find that of the Departments that can actually account for the revenue, some six million has been raked into government coffers through taxpayers’ telephone lines in just two years. 

“The figure could be larger still were it not for the considerable number of Departments who think it is better to let their share of the revenue go to a private company.  If Ministers will insist on ripping people off just to get through to departmental offices, why not at least plough the money back into meeting the government’s costs?  As it is, this is not so much a case of ‘tax and spend’, as ‘tax and lose’.

“Most puzzling of all is the Treasury’s answer to my most recent question.  In 2005, they could say with confidence that they made no revenue from any 0870 telephone numbers.  In 2007, there’s no way they can find out without ‘disproportionate cost’.  Perhaps Gordon Brown has so bullied Treasury staff that they can no longer count!

“The real disproportionate cost is that meted out to the citizen, trying to book a driving test, renew a driving licence or find out about a school’s performance.

“However long we hold on, it seems the government’s own guidance simply doesn’t get down the line to its own departments.  If they can bear the cost, it’s time the Central of Office of Information, which drew up the official guidelines, gave some Ministers a call.”

Copies of the Parliamentary Questions are available from Paul Tyler's House of Lords office.  Call Alex Davies on 020 7219 6355