§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, pursuant to his answers of 2 February,Official Report, column 789, what is the value of the contract to run the Charterline pilot scheme; if the service contract to operate the Charterline pilot scheme was awarded to the lowest bidder; how many calls have been dealt with by Charterline pilot scheme in its first nine months of operation; how much has been spent, in total, on the operation and promotion of the Charterline pilot scheme: if the provision of uniforms worn by staff answering telephones at the Charterline offices at Havant was a condition of the contract; and what is the cost per telephone call dealt with by Charterline.
§ Mr. David DavisThe service contract to operate Charterline pilot scheme is of no fixed value. The cost is dependent on the number of Charterline calls made. The service was awarded to the bidder that was judged to offer a high quality value for money service.
Over 5,300 calls have been received to date. Total set-up costs amount to £1,251,000. These include initial research, project planning and management, system design, contractual advice and data collection, which are all one-off costs. On-going costs to date amount to £1,033,136. These include paid advertising, research during the pilot study, set up and use of ACORN data—to provide public service organisations with information about callers' backgrounds—operational costs, and set up and operation of the Charterline language service, which is available in Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu.
The provision of uniforms worn by staff answering Charterline telephone calls was not a condition of the contract.
The cost per call to date is £70, if calculated on the basis of operational costs. The set-up and operational costs of a pilot study are always relatively high. If call volumes were higher, significant economies of scale could be achieved.
487WIn the event that the project is extended to a national or other basis, the cost per call figures would be greatly reduced.