Surely this garbage needs a response.

As local numbers haven't existed since 2004 giving the excuse that it could cost Surrey residents more because they are outside of Surrey is tosh - it wouldn't matter if they were in Aberdeen!

And surely the 0345 numbers have been avasilable for sometime now.

And get in the real world re speak to your telephone provide -. "Dear BT I think I am paying too much for using 0845 numbers" Dear Keith, I'm sorry to hear that, let us reduce them for you". I'll try that when I go shopping as well.

Surrey County Council are one of the leading abusers of NGNs for Contact Centre use amongst UK councils because they offer no other phone numbers at all to the general public other than this 0845 number and the 0845 number is frequently subject to long queues before you reach an operator.  Worse than that the staff who answer are classic robotised "we know nothing about anything" type call centre staff who have no geographic knowledge whatsoever of the County they are supposed to take calls on behalf of and no understanding of normal basic council issues (let alone the cost of phone calls).

The last conversation I had with their contact centre manager about 3 months ago showed that senior management at Surrey CC were in reality perfectly well aware of the 0845 overcharge issue and this person claimed they were in the process of moving to using an 03 number shortly.  But then I was told by another contact centre manager that they were working towards switching to a geographic phone number three years ago.  There is no excuse whatsoever for them using 0845 and other large county councils like West Sussex use solely geographic phone numbers for contact.

Can I make the following points:-

1. Can Dave, DaveM or bbb_uk remove the verified number listed as the Surrey County Council switchboard (020 85418800) that I originally provided to this site two or three years ago and replace it with 01252 716021 (showing it as the Surrey County Council - Contact Centre) this is because the original 020 number now plays a message telling callers to call the 0845 number for the Contact Centre.  This new 01252 geographic number for their contact centre in the Unverified section is in fact the former direct geographic number for Farnham Library (still shown at www.ucas.ac.uk/students/startapplication/wheretoapply/southeast/surrey) and various other places via Google so I imagine this is why it still feeds in to the Contact Centre as direct public contact with the libraries on the phone was also ended by Surrey CC in favour of the Contact Centre.  The fact that the previous more memorable geographic number for Surrey Contact Centre (their old main switchboard number in Kingston Upon Thames) has now been closed down by having a redirect message to call the 0845 number put in place clearly tells us the abusive and control freakish forces in the Contact Centre management that we are up against.

2. The way to deal with the outrageous tissue of lies that is listed by Surrey CC to defend their use of 0845 on their website is to make an Official Complaint using the three stage complaints procedure with Surrey County Council (that finally leads to the Local Government Ombudsman).  To do this call the dedicated Official Complaints line numbers on 020 8541 9100 or 020 8541 9811 (its interesting that these are still geographic numbers on their website) saying you want to make an Official Complaint about these statements regarding their 0845 number and want the complaint formally investigated and to receive an official response.   Do not under any circumstances agree to accept an informal resolution.

Or it may be easier to just email county.complaints@surreycc.gov.uk along with links to the sticky articles on this website which show why 0845 and 0870 numbers are not local rate plus of course a link to the COI's Contact Centre Guide V3 and the page number with the section on cost to the citizen consumer of 0845 and 0870 numbers.  Again make clear this is a formal complaint and you will not accept an informal resolution.

3. If you live in Surrey you should also email your local County Councillor to complain about this matter.

You can find your County Councillor and their email address at:-

www.surreycc.gov.uk/members/membook.nsf/webSelectMember?openform

4. You might also want to copy any emails of complaint you send to Surrey CC's complaints section to the following people:-

The Leader of the Council

Nick Skellett - n.skellett@surreycc.gov.uk

The Chief Executive

Richard Shaw - richard.shaw@surreycc.gov.uk

The Cabinet/Executive Member for Policy and Performance

Helyn Clack - helyn.clack@surreycc.gov.uk

Dave wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2008 at 9:19pm:


Thanks Dave.

However since Surrey County Council seem to have the same attitude towards the availability of geographic alternative numbers for their Contact Centre as Sky then regretfully I suspect it is only a matter of time before the 01252 old Farnham library number GN route to the Contact Centre is also replaced by a recorded announcement saying call 0845 by its abusive management and/or their private sector call centre partner.

That is why it is important to make a formal complaint to the Council and/or email your local County Councillor about the matter.

Well actually I intend to make a formal complaint and email the Cabinet Member and Chief Executive and all 81 County Councillors (with a copy of the rubbish on their website)  about this matter but as there is no group email address for all Councillors unfortunately that is a whole lot of work and may take me a little while to get round to.

Keith wrote on Apr 27^th, 2008 at 5:08pm:


Well done Keith.  Do you live in Surrey as obviously they will take a lot more notice of the views of Surrey County Council Taxpayers who live in the County.

To get their attention my recommendation would to to ask for it to be treated as a formal complaint at Stage 1 on which you will not accept an Informal Resolution.  This then starts heading down the track towards the Local Government Ombudsman.  They take official complaints like this much more seriously than mere comments or suggestions from the public.

Cunningly they won't tell you about the official complaints procedure unless you know about it and will just treat your complaint as an informal comment on which they don't have to act or respond.

You might also want to refer them to the excellent example set by Mole Valley District Council (the next tier down in Surrey providing swimming pools, planning decisions and rubbish collections etc) who adopted policy banning the use of 084 and 087 prefixed numbers at their July 2005 full Council meeting.

See Minute No 141 - Motion 2/2005 at www.molevalley.gov.uk/media/pdf/1/s/Council_Minutes_190705.pdf

A good letter Keith but I would make sure to also copy this to your local County Councillor, who would hopefully take up the cudgels on your behalf and indeed may not support the current Surrey CC policy on this matter.

Do you think that changed because of my email to the Chief Exec and leader of the council. If so I'm feeling somewhat smug.

If so I'm impressed with the change in wording happening so quickly. The initial info was rubbish, but the change was very quick and the excuse for not yet adopting an 03 number is plausable when you consider some of the stories we have heard and the lack of promotion for the number.

I think it right to say well done to Surrey CC.

Dave wrote on Apr 28^th, 2008 at 2:13pm:

Come on, give Keith some credit.