§ Mr. DonohoeTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the use of freephone and freepost facilities currently being operated by his Department; how much these facilities are costing; for what purposes these facilities are being used; and how much his Department has spent on operating freephone and freepost facilities in each financial year since its establishment on a separate Department.
§ Mr. HagueThis Department offers the following services by way of freephone
Freeline 0800 666555 —The freeline social security telephone service gives general advice and information on the full range of Social Security benefits and covers all aspects of an enquiry, regardless of the circumstances. Its aim is to provide a confidential, speedy and expert advice service without access to any benefit files.It originally started as a series of regional initiatives and became a national service in 1984 with 40 staff.There are 10 freeline centres based at: Sutton; Ilford; Cambridge; Birmingham; Bootle; Nottingham; Leeds; Edinburgh; Cardiff and Newcastle, with an 11th Freeline centre due to be opened this year in Preston.410WEthnic freeline—Punjabi 0800 521360, Urdu 0800 289188 and Cantonese 0800 252451—services giving general advice and information on social security benefits in these languages;Welsh freeline—0800 289011—a service giving general advice and information on social security benefits in Welsh;Family credit freeline—0800 500222—a service is available 24 hours per day, to order information packs on family credit;The benefit enquiry line—0800 882200—introduced in June 1991—a service giving advice and information to people with disabilities and to those caring for them. Extended in April 1993 to provide a form completion service for invalid care allowance, severe disablement allowance, disability living allowance, attendance allowance and disability working allowance.Social security advice line for employers (SSALE)—0800 393539—introduced in August 1993—a service for employers which gives general advice and information on NI contributions, statutory sick pay and maternity pay.Itsa service help desk—introduced in late 1988—provides advice and help to users in DSS agencies, DSS or DH headquarters staff on approximately 250 systems ranging from the mainframe based operational strategy systems to small server based systems.This Department uses freepost to a very limited extent mainly in advertising campaigns aimed at increasing the knowledge of the general public, for example, council tax benefits, or alerting them to changes in their liabilities and rights under the law. We offer an extensive business reply service—pre-printed addressed labels—which enables our customers to reply free of charge. Business reply envelopes are issued to our customers to facilitate the return of information or where a reply is essential to our business needs.
Costings for freephone and freepost are not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.