Annex A

Annex A

Dear Mr Sittampalam ,

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request received on 21 August 2009. You asked for:

In a previous FoI response you state that "The Department has considered the use of 0300 numbers to replace 0845 numbers. However, our analysis shows that this would result currently in higher charges for the majority of the Department's customers."

Please supply a copy of this analysis including any research that fed into it, and any communications you have had with Ofcom over the advice they give in favour of 0300 numbers on their website: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consumeradvice/landline/costofcalls/08faq/

In June 09 we completed analysis of the charges for customers supplemented by information on the profile of callers to our services (by landline, mobile and call box). This shows that moving from 0845 to 0300 would disadvantage more customers in our view than it would advantage. The attached spreadsheet provides full details of the analysis (see tab on Better Value Flow Chart).

We are also planning to lobby to try and solve this continuing dilemma with 0845 and indeed would like to see 0845 calls treated in the same way for charging purposes as geographic calls (whether they are 01, 02 or 03). However, our current priority is to resolve issues with charges on 0800 calls from mobiles.

We will conduct a further update of the analysis in September 09 and use the latest information from OFCOM about market shares.

We have not discussed any OFCOM advice on whether to use 03 numbers.

If you have any queries about this letter please contact me quoting the reference number above.

Yours sincerely,

DWP Central FoI Team

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DWP Central Freedom of Information Team

e-mail: [DWP request email]

Our Ref: VTR 1672

4 September 2009