Barbara, I am assuming that your comments about MPs making telephone calls were relevant to the point under discussion, arising from the quoted written answer from Jim Knight. If not, then you did not make this clear.

If you review the particular issue raised you will see that MPs are not offered preferential rates, they are offered different access. The difference in rates arises purely because the contact point being accessed is different, not because two different numbers are used for the same purpose. Any preferential treatment is therefore obtained purely as a result of having different access. If you wish to make an allegation that the respective choices of telephone number is made deliberately so as to provide a financial benefit to members of parliament, then you can look forward to me tearing that to shreds.

If your suggestion that MPs should enjoy the same conditions as "the rest of us" in order to "concentrate their minds" was in any way relevant to the matter under discussion, it can only have been with reference to the different access. Furthermore and as you say, MPs do not personally incur the cost of the charges associated with telephone calls, so it is only the effort involved in pursuing cases that could have any bearing on their state of mind.

Perhaps you are joining Dave in suggesting that MPs, like other elected representatives, should bear the cost of doing their work from their personal resources. Your condemnation of professionalism, and your praise for councillors who have no need to spend their time earning a living, does indeed suggest that those with private means should be preferred as candidates at an election. You may even believe that those who need to earn a living or women with young children should be debarred from seeking elected office.

The balance between amateurism and professionalism in our elected representatives is both very delicate and key to the precious creature that is our system of representative democracy. The involvement, and thereby the funding, of parties comes into this issue also, as they commonly provide some of the resource used in undertaking constituency casework.

The number of stupid comments that have been made over the issue of MPs expenses (and even some of the outcome of the serious work on a new system) gives one far greater cause for concern about our system than the serious scandals which emerged once a wholly improper scheme (introduced purely as a consequence of populist politics) was shown up for what it was. Please forgive any excess in my intolerance of badly thought out comments on these matters.



Across various areas, it is becoming increasingly common for all customers and service users to have ready access to "Managers". This is achieved by re-titling the staff who routinely deal with all service users and customers as "Managers". A strong principle of consumerism is that those who are sufficiently "empowered" (i.e. informed, eloquent, motivated and having the time to do so) should be able to pursue their personal interests by accessing senior officers who have managerial duties and therefore do not have the time to engage with every aggrieved “customer”. I do not share your stated support for the further adoption of this principle, which I most strongly oppose in relation to public services. I believe that these should be delivered on equitable, rather than consumerist, principles.

I firmly believe that everyone should be treated well and have the opportunity for their complaints to be addressed. I see it as right and proper that personal issues judged to be of particular concern, or genuinely requiring additional assistance in being presented, should be addressed effectively when the support of an elected representative, or other specialist agencies that are run on a voluntary or professional basis, is successfully engaged. It is totally proper that appropriate privileged access channels be made available to all such agencies for use only when it is deemed necessary from their objective standpoint.


Addressing your wider points, I do not agree that requiring managers to receive more representations from customers and service users, or MPs to spend more time engaged in the same struggles that their constituents endure would necessarily improve the quality of the work done by either. It would undoubtedly lead to more weight being given to narrow populist causes. I see us as already suffering from too much of this distortion of proper judgement in the setting of policy at all levels.

In my view, both public service managers and elected representatives should be required to demonstrate the necessary knowledge, experience and capacity for both objective judgement and empathy before being awarded their positions in the first place. There is nothing wrong in these skills being subject to further development, however adopting radical measures in order to correct a serious deficiency that has not been recognised is likely to produce highly undesirable effects.

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That disposes of the politics and other matters which are strictly OT, the next post will be back on topic.

SCV, I note your intention to avoid further what you consider off topic points.  However, I cannot let pass your first post of 5th Dec, directed at me, without stating that I found your comments personal and offensive.   I would ask that you do not make assumptions about my views or situation nor ascribe statements and views to me which I have not expressed.   Should you have any interest, I would again ask that you read my posts, you will see I did not express those views which you ascribe to me, nor did I say "professionalism" but "professionalisation" which is vastly different.

Dave wrote on Dec 7^th, 2009 at 1:07pm:

I am sorry but I cannot see the point that is alleged to stand.

For most calls made to DWP agencies 0845 (and 0800) numbers are cheaper than geographic numbers. Whatever issue there may be in the public purse incurring the cost of MPs calling geographic numbers on whatever business tariff applies to their work on behalf of their constituents, I cannot see the alleged hypocrisy. I can clearly see the basis for a tabloid headline and story, but the issue would not withstand careful consideration.

I fear that contributors to this thread may not have thought this issue through properly and have therefore ended up making points that perhaps they did not intend to make. If that is true, then I am happy to withdraw any critical inferences applied to what was said, if that is not what was intended. As comments stand however, so do my responses.

Whatever our views may be on the fact that MPs are reimbursed for the expenses they incur in undertaking casework for their constituents, notwithstanding the potential for fraudulent and improper claims which many have been found to have made, we cannot deny the fact that this system of proper reimbursement exists and is not universally abused.

Here, here NGM's Ghost!!!!

Members must recognise that my continuing efforts to get the DWP to change its approach are based on reality.

The situation for those with non-BT landlines, with mobiles and using payphones makes the retention of only 0845 and 0800 numbers unacceptable. Any revenue-sharing number is unacceptable as a matter of principle.

There has been an interim move made by the offer of a call back to all mobile callers to both 0845 and 0800 numbers. Further significant progress with 0800 is expected to be announced shortly.


Information collected by DWP shows that a very high proportion of calls to 0845 numbers comes from landlines. There is no more detailed data, however after removing the proportion likely to be calling from those non-BT lines where the cost is greater than that of a geographic call and those who incur the same cost as subscribers to the BT anytime package, one is still left with the majority likely to be calling from BT and benefiting from the discount applied to non-inclusive calls to 0845 numbers.

If anybody can offer an objective way of establishing how the proportions of daytime landline calls to 0845 numbers may be broken down into being cheaper / more expensive than, or the same as, geographic calls then perhaps a more accurate assessment of the impact of the present DWP policy could be made. Until this has been done, I have to stand by my statement.


For me, there is no question that many landline callers find it cheaper to call 0845 numbers. Whether this represents a majority or minority of callers to any particular number is irrelevant and therefore unworthy of consideration in my view. I see serving the interests of the majority over those of a minority as anti-democratic tyranny. I regret the fact that many disagree with this view. I have pointed out to the DWP that if the interests of the majority of taxpayers were to be served over those of the minorities who are unemployed, disabled, over pensionable age or in need of help obtaining child support, then the DWP agencies would be abolished. The belief that the financial interests of a sizable number (allegedly a majority) overrides the need for a broader equity however remains in force as the justification for retaining 0845 numbers.

Some may wish to change the position by broad subjective assertions that the interests of the majority demands abandonment of 0845 numbers. I am not convinced of this as a point if fact, and I approach the matter in a quite different way.

I fully appreciate the desire to address these matters in the simplest way possible. This cannot however include denial of the relevant facts. Attacking use of 0845 numbers on the simple basis of the cost to callers has never been easy because of BT's perverse charging policies. Although BT's pricing is commonly misrepresented as being typical (which it is not), it cannot be dismissed.

I hope that those who argue for most BT customers to pay more to contact DWP agencies, whilst those who use others providers would pay less, would be happy to answer any charge that they represent the interests of those other providers, perhaps in return for payment. Those who argue for the DWP not to benefit from revenue share must also answer for their implicit support for a greater burden of cost being placed on the taxpayer. I am happy to defend my position.

BT Retail is the exception with its perverse pricing structure, by virtue of regulation. Of those providers other than BT, the vast majority charge more for 0845 calls than geographical and 03 ones. This is to be expected to be the case due to the underlying premium carried on 0845 calls.

Those who adopt an exclusive 0845 numbering strategy on the basis that it is allegedly cheaper to call for the majority are essentially meddling with the call origination market. The result of this is that those who don’t subscribe to BT’s atypical charges pay more. I firmly believe that these call recipients (service providers) should keep their noses out of the call origination market. In deciding their primary numbering strategy they should go as far as deciding what level of subsidy (if any) they wish to derive from callers or whether they wish to cover the cost of calls from landlines.

Service providers may like to offer alternative 0845 numbers for those customers with BT and other perverse charging providers.

Thus, where only 0845 numbers are used, they should be employed solely as a mechanism to levy fees on callers.

irrelevant wrote on Dec 13^th, 2009 at 7:06pm:

I have been working on the later figures (for Q1 09/10) published by Ofcom in September:

These give BT 46.7% of residential call volumes, Virgin Media 16.6% and 36.7% for Others.

Virgin Media charges more for 0845 than geographic calls in all cases. Talk Talk, Sky, PO Homephone, Tiscali and others follow BT by charging less.

There are other tables that break down by call type, however these do not distinguish residential callers from business. I have gently attempted to press Ofcom for more information from their source data, in particular in the breakdown of "Others", but without success.

BT has stated that around 10% of its call plan customers are on Anytime.

From these very rough figures one may conclude that something approaching 79% of landline callers pay less to call 0845 numbers than geographic numbers. The figure for those who pay no more is higher.

The DWP defence of its use of 0845 is actually based on BT's share of landline provision, which probably gives a lower percentage.

The DWP has reported that around 70% of calls to 0845 numbers have been found to come from landlines. There are a few odd mobile tariffs with lower rates for 0845 calls which could be added in.

This is how one is able to sustain the claim that a majority of callers pay less to call DWP agencies on 0845 numbers.


If someone wants to play around with the statistics and try to use this as the basis for a case then please do so.

As stated above, I SEE THIS AS TOTALLY IRRELEVANT - I would still press the issue if 95% of callers found it cheaper to call a revenue sharing number. One cannot play off one group of public service users against another. If there are potentially conflicting interests to be served, some proper means of resolution has to be found - simple head counting or financial calculation is not satisfactory for reasons that should be obvious. That is why we have a representative democracy, so that elected, and thereby accountable, representatives can make appropriate decisions.


If the DWP or any other public body wants to give some callers the option of benefiting from perverse discounts available from one or more telephone companies, then I have no objection to it offering as many special alternative numbers as it feels that it can, given the need for clear and precise explanation of the circumstances in which these should be used. Its primary numbers may not be subject  to revenue sharing. If there are sound reasons for using non-geographic numbers, they must be from the 03xx range.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Dec 14^th, 2009 at 2:04am:

Talk Talk charges 0845 calls inline with national geographical calls at all times and Sky Talk charges them 6ppm at all times.

The only operators I can see that charge less for 0845 calls at certain times are BT (3.29ppm), Post Office Home Phone (1.564ppm) and Tiscali Talk (0.59ppm). So any saving is well below 4ppm.


SilentCallsVictim wrote on Dec 14^th, 2009 at 2:04am:

The DWP is clinging to its 0845 numbers by presenting the version of "reality" that justifies its current position. It most probably adopted 0845 numbers on the basis that they were "local rate" and was consumed by the fixation that it would be wrong for some callers to pay the difference between BT local and national rates, 3.96ppm.

Now we have a situation where many pay far than they would do to a local geographical number, but this is swept under the carpet. The differential between call rates we are talking about today put the less than 4ppm figure in the shade!

The DWP has reported that around seven out of 10 calls come from landlines. How many of these are from people who are using a friend's landline because they don't have their own? How many people are not ringing up at all because either they cannot afford the credit on their mobile or they are fearful of the cost of the call from their mobile?

I assume it's fair to say that the majority of people making contact with the Department are in the least well off proportion of the population. Perhaps its statistician would like to confirm this. The greater extra cost weighs even heavier on those who can least afford it. This is evidently not the "reality" that the DWP wants to face.