Cones Hotline (Hansard, 31 January 1994)

§ Mr. Lewis
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is the total number of staff employed on the cones hotline.

§ Mr. Key
No staff are engaged exclusively on the cones hotline. Two additional staff have been temporarily employed since December to assist the hotline but are not working solely on that activity. All follow-up work related to hotline inquiries has been undertaken within existing resources.

§ Mr. Lewis
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is(a) the current cost of operating the cones hotline and (b) how many calls have been made to it since its inception.

§ Mr. Key
The cost of operating the cones hotline has been met within existing budgets. Two additional staff have been temporarily employed since December to assist the hotline but are not working solely on that activity.
Since its introduction in June 1992 until 25 January 1994, 478 calls registered as formal inquiries have been received by the cones hotline. Until recently other calls received by the hotline have not been recorded, but they are currently running at two to three times the number of formal inquiries about specific schemes.