Quote "under that system calls will cost 5p per minute"

Does this mean that calls to this 0300 number will not be included in call packages? Cornwall County Council used to operate on a geographic number so the new number would appear to cost more, if I understand this correctly? I thought that the 0300 number range was to replace 0870 and was to be charged at the same rate as geographic calls, is this incorrect?

Dave wrote on Jul 7^th, 2008 at 3:28pm:


Assuming that is that your communication provider actually gives two hoots for bothering to observing Ofcom's General Conditions.

Both my old phone provider (Post Office Homephone) and my current provider (yourcalls.net) thought that they would stick up two fingers at Ofcom by charging me g6 multimedia rate (5p per minute and excluded from call packages) for calling Ofcom's own 03 number!

Seems that Ofcom thinks that compliance with their General Conditions is voluntary and does not suffer any form of financial penalty for the company in question, even when the offence is proved to Ofcom.

Dave wrote on Jul 7^th, 2008 at 3:06pm:


Am I alone in finding that my calls to large organisations with a dumbed down contact centre on a single phone number always require reference to "expert knowledge" for a satisfactory response and are never adequately handled at the call centre front line.

How can Cornwall Council be stumbling blindly in to making the same catastrophic errors as were made by Surrey County Council over five years ago with its ghastly single number contact centre which, even leaving aside the sin of 0845 number access, is also utterly useless at answering or resolving any question because the staff are all clueless and do not even generally live in the County.

How can other Councils continue to stumble in to using the same politically correct model of centralised call centres when it has long ago been utterly discredited as completely hopeless

http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=47935

A Single Council for Cornwall

On 1 April 2009 Cornwall's county, borough and district councils will join together to form Cornwall Council. Here's a quick guide to what will happen on 1 April 2009

From 1 April, Cornwall Council, the new unitary council will provide a huge range of services right across the county.

You will get a guide to Cornwall Council services delivered to your home with your council tax bill in March with more details.

What changes will you see?

To begin with you probably will not notice much difference in your local services. Our plan is to keep things running smoothly as we change to one single council. Here are some of the main changes.

A single set of 0300 telephone numbers  (these new numbers won't go live till 1 April)

General enquiries (and all services) 0300 1234 100

Children, schools and families         0300 1234 101

Libraries                                        0300 1234 111

Benefits                                         0300 1234 121

Adult care and support                  0300 1234 131

Refuse and recycling                      0300 1234 141

Planning                                        0300 1234 151

Housing                                        0300 1234 161

Council tax and business rates       0300 1234 171

Registration service                         0300 1234 181

Trading standards                         0300 1234 191

Environmental management         0300 1234 202

Environmental health & licensing     0300 1234 212

Roads, transport and parking         0300 1234 222

Fire and community safety             0300 1234 232

You can still use the old county, borough and district numbers as well as these new numbers.

[…]

Source: Looe.org

http://www.looe.org/

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Local Government - what local government?

It is said that all governments, of whatever political hue and regardless of what they said when they were in opposition, tend to concentrate power towards the centre and take power away from localities and the people. A good example is the recent abolition of district councils in Cornwall, so the only level of local government with significant powers and resources is now the new Cornwall Council, basically what was Cornwall County Council, based in Truro some 42 miles and around 1 hours 20 minutes drive from Looe - if you're lucky with the traffic!  (There are, as previously, "town councils" and "parish councils" but these have minimal resources and powers and are not responsible for any of the major services)
   True, the new council does have what are optimistically but very misleadingly called Cornwall Council logo - click to visit the Council's website"one stop shops", one of which is located in Liskeard in the offices where the old Caradon District council was located. But is it possible to telephone the area office/one stop shop direct? No, it is not. As if to emphasise the remoteness of the new council, it has adopted the most user-unfriendly telephone system imaginable which uses 0300 numbers which are charged at - wait for it - national rates (point made?). It could easily have opted to use local rate numbers but chose not to do so.    Numbers for the more local "one stop shops"/area offices are not published anywhere so there is no alternative but to endure a tedious pass the parcel system via the centralised call centre before, after several transfers, one reaches someone who knows about the matter you wish to discuss and who is located less than a day's journey from where you live.

[…]

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So the "local rate" numbers that is suggested here the Council could have used begin with what prefix?  

Clearly this person has taken the Council's statement that it is "national rate" to imply:
1. that national calls are still more expensive than local ones.
2. that 0300 calls cost more than local ones on today's tariffs.
3. that there is another type of number that could be charged at local rate.