See also the FOI thread on Norfolk County Council.

The contact page lists a whole host of 0844 numbers charged at 5 pence per minute at all times. At the bottom it says:

Quote:


Callers will obviously pay the same to call 01603 numbers regardless of location, at any time of day.

I cannot understand the last bit which is complete jibberish:

"The other option available to offer a fair and equitable service was for Norfolk County Council to implement an 0845 number. However, 0845 numbers are revenue generating and, based on our 2004 call volumes, this would have cost Norfolk County Council £1.8 million."

It seems they are saying that 0845 numbers are revenue generating and that their use would mean it would cost £1.8 million. 

So, if 0845 are "revenue sharing", what are 0844? 

Quote:

Perhaps this is indicative of BT prices for 0845 numbers. According to BT's website [url=here, incoming call charges for BT 0845 service is 3.48 pence per minute with a monthly charge of £10.

It still works out very high, even if we assume 50 0845 numbers.

The point is that this is just ridiculous! The contract should be put out to tender and any right thinking person knows, revenue is available, thus there is no need to pay if they shopped around.

Can I offer an interpretation based on a truth that we all know.

Call type "g6" (5p per minute) 0844 numbers are "revenue generating", whereas the revenue share on 0845 numbers only generates a subsidy (that offsets the cost incurred in using 03xx).

I think the author of the statement in question made a typo at the beginning and then lost their thread in completing the point, by failing to reintroduce 0845 as the subject of the second clause - perhaps it should read as follows (extended for clarity):

"However 0844 numbers are revenue generating, and, based on our 2004 call volumes, using a 0845 number would have cost Norfolk County Council £1.8 million in lost additional revenue that was earned from callers."

Goodness knows what a switch to 03xx would do to the Council Tax!

On 1 July Norfolk County Council switched its 0844 numbers to 0344 ones. See contact page.

With Norwich City Council due to do the same soon, the two main councils in Norfolk have abandoned their premium telephone numbers. Will Norfolk Constabulary do the same?

http://www.norfolk.gov.uk/consumption/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&ssDocName=NC...

One digit change for Norfolk County Council public phone numbers

13 July 2009

A small change in Norfolk County Council's main public phone numbers will mean more small change in the pockets of many callers.

All of the county council's 0844 numbers are changing to become 0344 numbers, with the new numbers already operating alongside the old ones. The change has been made after people told the council they couldn't make use of free minutes on their mobile and landline packages when ringing the old 0844 numbers. Because 0344 numbers are charged at the same rate as numbers starting in 01 and 02, people who have free minutes to these numbers as part of their phone package will now be able to call the council for free. People who pay to ring 01 and 02 numbers will pay no more than their usual rate to ring the new 0344 numbers.

When making this change, Norfolk County Council moved onto a different phone contract and it is expected this new deal will save the council £30,000 a year in telephone costs.

Tony Williams, Cabinet Member for Corporate and Commercial Services at Norfolk County Council, said: “We listen to the feedback we receive from people and continuously examine the way we do things so that we can make sure we are providing good value for money for the people of Norfolk. Here's an excellent example of why it's so important to do this, with savings being made for many callers and £30,000 annual savings for the council which will help us keep our part of the council tax charge as low as possible.”

The only change to the county council's 0844 numbers is to the start, from 0844 to 0344 - the rest of the numbers will stay the same. From this week, the new numbers will be promoted in a countywide marketing campaign including press and radio adverts and the Norfolk County Council website and BT directory enquiries are already updated with the new 0344 numbers. The new numbers are also listed in Your Norfolk, the county council's publication which will be distributed to people's homes from today (13 July).

The 0844 numbers will continue to run alongside the new numbers for at least a year and people using the 0844 numbers will be given the opportunity to redial the new 0344 version in order to make potential savings or can choose to stay on the line.

Norfolk County Council's phone number for general enquiries is now 0344 800 8020 and phone lines are open 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday. For a full list of county council telephone numbers by department, visit the 'Contact us' page of the Norfolk County Council website at www.norfolk.gov.uk.

-ends-

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So by abandoning revenue sharing numbers, the council saves £30,000 a year. Is this a sign of previous incompetence when the 0844 numbers were introduced which allowed the council's telephone provider to profiteer?

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jul 20^th, 2009 at 9:57pm:

There are possible reasonable explanations because they said that they moved to a new phone contract. Such a move could result in savings elsewhere to which this may be referring.

loddon wrote on Jul 21^st, 2009 at 7:32am:

Information is always helpful, but there is rather a lot of it that could be found, and so one has to choose what is likely to be of value.

If we do find that NCC could have got its 0844 number more cheaply from another provider originally, how does that help the cause?

An investigation would be likely to find that a new contract for the 0844 numbers would have been much cheaper than the 03 numbers. Where would that leave us?

Is this not a matter for the people of Norfolk, who may be concerned about other larger clearer examples of overspending in other areas?

I say "03 does not have to be more expensive" is the line to follow.