Comment: Some government departments make millions charging citizens to ring for help
By John Healey MP
My research has shown that two-thirds of government departments and agencies use high-cost phone lines. Many are 0845 numbers costing callers up to 41p per minute. Some are premium rate 09 numbers, which can cost over £2.50 per minute.
These calls cost more because they use revenue-sharing numbers, which normally means a share for the organisation receiving the call as well as the telephone company.
The Department for Transport has made £2.5 million out of high-cost calls in the last three years, while the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has pocketed £10,000. Other departments have had their phone bills cut or received additional, free services worth millions of pounds.
Cable & Wireless has given HM Revenue & Customs extra services worth nearly £5 million. Iain Duncan Smith has confirmed to me that British Telecommunications has cut the cost to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of outbound calls.
Phone companies are making a fortune too. Cable & Wireless makes £1 million from its Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) 0845 numbers.
But many departments claim they aren’t getting any benefit. If that is true, it is a terrible deal for the taxpayers. The government talks tough on spending and efficiency – but this seems to be a big and widespread example of bad procurement. Government departments are helping line telephone companies’ pockets without expecting anything in return.
Last month, I provided the National Audit Office (NAO) with a dossier of evidence gleaned from parliamentary questions and freedom of information requests, and called on them to investigate.
I’m pleased the NAO have taken up that call, and are now shining a light on the practice across government. They are looking at why the government is choosing these rip-off rate numbers instead of geographic rate or free-phone numbers, and whether and how they are benefiting.
Britons make millions of calls every year to the government, on everything from benefits and tax credits to driving licences. Government departments and their agencies provide services that many people, particularly the poorest, have to use.
I’ve been campaigning against the use of 0844 and 0845 numbers by GPs and government departments for the last year-and-a-half. Phone lines for disability living allowance, carers allowance, Jobcentres, the Social Fund and Pensions Service are all 0845. This is a widespread practice – and the new helplines being set up are 0845 too.
It’s a telephone tax – and it hits people who rely on government services hardest.
The government is cutting back on face-to-face services and forcing people onto the phone, to get information and help, change details and make claims. But they are charging rip-off rates and landing people with big bills they can’t afford.
We already make millions of calls to government departments and things are set to get worse. Upheaval and turmoil in the benefits system will bring an explosion of inquiries and problems.
These callers, many of them elderly, vulnerable, sick and on the lowest incomes, are subsidising the government’s phone bills to the tune of millions of pounds and phone companies are making a fortune.
After the probe into their phone lines by public accounts committee, HMRC have pledged to switch all their phone lines to 03 this summer. They estimate it will save their customers £13 million a year.
So it is possible, and there are strong arguments for using alternatives. It is time the other departments and agencies followed suit.
John Healey is the Labour MP for Wentworth and Dearne. His eight-page report, 'The Telephone Tax' can be downloaded here.
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