§ Mr. Eldon Griffithsasked the Postmaster-General (1) if he is satisfied that the mechanical systems of accounting employed by the telephone service are accurate; and if he will make a statement;
(2) what proportion of complaints regarding excessive charges on subscribers' telephone accounts are attributable to errors arising from faults in the mechanical functioning of subscriber trunk dialling accounting machinery; and what is the nature of these faults;
(3) on how many occasions during the past 12 months the General Post Office has made reductions to telephone subscribers' bills due to errors in accounting procedures;
(4) on how many occasions during the past 12 months he has made adjustments to telephone subscribers' accounts on grounds of goodwill and without prejudice;
(5) what discretion he gives to members of his Department to reduce telephone bills following complaints of overcharging.
§ Mr. Edward ShortTelephone bills usually cover
the rental, which depends on the type —of installation;
and the call fees, derived from each customer's meter which records dialled calls and from tickets prepared by the operators for the calls which they handle.
There may also be other items.
I am satisfied that the meters are reliable. They have been proved over a a very long period of use; they are tested periodically, and if one goes wrong it tends to cease recording, which safeguards the customer.
The mechanised accounting system now in general use was introduced in 1958. It employs punched cards produced either manually or by optical scanning of call tickets, the information being processed electro-mechanically. In London a computer has been in use since 1964 for some of the operations and later this year it will take over most of them. Computers will be used for all bills in the course of the next few years, except in Northern 150W Ireland where manually operated accounting machines are used, and for which no plan for a computer has yet been prepared. I am satisfied that the various machines are dependable and that the system is satisfactory. It includes several checks aimed at avoiding errors.
About 26 million bills are issued a year to about 6½ million customers for about 7,000 million calls. Immunity from error cannot be guaranteed in so large an undertaking. I am, however, satisfied that errors are rare; that those which occur are isolated, and usually attributable to human failures to observe the prescribed procedures. Surveys of opinion obtained by questionnaires indicate a high degree of customer satisfaction.
Discretion to settle bills for calls is devolved to Telephone Managers and I am sorry that the figures asked for are not available centrally. They could only be obtained by a substantial effort throughout the country, which I do not consider to be justified.