§ Mr. DonohoeTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the public information telephone inquiry lines operated by his Department, in each case indicating the costs of establishing, operating and publicising these lines and the number of calls made to them up until this point; when they were established; and what assessment his Department has made of their effectiveness. [17457]
§ Mr. BaldryConsular Department operates a public information telephone service for travel advice. Because of increased demand—staff were handling as many as 600 calls per day—and in order to improve our service to the public a new automated telephone answering system was introduced on 27 February 1995. The service offers travel advice for the 11 countries most in demand and is available on 0374–500900.
Call costs to the public are at standard or local rate. The new service involved no capital expenditure. Its running costs are £500 per month. The national and local media, the travel industry and other existing customers have received information about the service. No publicity costs have been incurred. It is still too early to assess the effectiveness of the new service.