Date published: 02/06/2008

Responding to a revealing Which? Magazine study that names and shames Government Agencies which use expensive phone lines to make money, LibDem Parliamentary candidate Dale Mulgrew has expressed his deep ill ease that such double charging still continues unabated.

Which? Magazine discovered that the DVLA and the Passport Office were some of the worse offenders and the DVLA made £3.4 million during the last financial year from its 0870 number.

The DVLA was also guilty of being one of organizations that kept people hanging on the longest, with average waiting times of around three minutes. The DVLA plans to switch to a cheaper number but hasn’t said when it will.

Mr Mulgrew said, ‘this is really reprehensible that government helplines continue to use expensive telephone numbers where they receive some of the revenue at the expense of the taxpayer who already fund such services. Effectively this is a double charge and is utterly wrong.’

He added, ‘these helplines to government services are often contacted by people who require assistance, or have some details to submit and have no choice but to ring the call centre. I also notice the length of call times indicate that the guidance provided during such contact must be important, so the service that these helplines provide should then not be at a further expense to the caller.’

He concluded, ‘The Government should make all essential government helplines switch to the newly introduced and cheaper 03 set of numbers as soon as possible and ultimately should remove any charges in the future.’