§ Mr. YeoTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many call centres are contracted or operated by her Department and its agencies. [93798]
§ Ms HewittMy Department and its agencies have a number of call centre operations in place as well as specific inquiry number helplines which will vary in number at any given time to reflect particular initiatives we are engaged in.
The number of call centres currently in use across the Department and its agencies is 11. These involve a mix of 0800, 0870, 0845 and STD (e.g. 020) numbers and are either operated direct by the Department or its agencies or as a managed service on our behalf.
Information is not available centrally on the current number of inquiry helplines but at the last review in 2001 some 33 departmental and 25 agency helplines existed. These generally utilise STD numbers but some 0800 and 0845 numbers are also used.