§ Lord Rowallanasked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their strategy on helplines
§ Baroness Jay of PaddingtonThe Government believe in the importance of providing information. The use of helplines is one of a number of communications 119WA methods which can be used. A recent example is the proposal in the White Paper The New NHS: Modern and Dependable to introduce new 24-hour advice lines to provide easier and faster advice and information through the National Health Service. We will pilot this through three care and advice helplines to begin in March 1998. We are aiming for the whole country to be covered by the year 2000.
§ Lord Rowallanasked Her Majesty's Government:
Who was asked to tender for the CALM helpline; how the original contract was awarded to Network Scotland; and why the most used helpline in Britain—SANELINE—was not asked to tender.
§ Baroness Jay of PaddingtonThe contract was awarded to Network Scotland on the basis of value-for-money and fitness for purpose. This organisation has a proven track record in operating helplines on sensitive issues—most notably the Sexwise line, offering counselling on sex and emotional matters for young people; the National AIDS Helpline and the National Drugs Helpline. Four other organisations were invited to tender for the CALM helpline.
The scale of the project required a European-wide invitation to tender for which there was insufficient time to meet the deadline of a 15 December launch.
It was therefore, decided that this project should be managed by the Central Office of Information, which was able to organise a tender from suppliers assembled under a European Union framework agreement which had previously been established as a result of an advertisement for direct marketing services to government in the Official Journal of European Tenders. SANELINE do not appear on the framework list and were therefore ineligible for consideration.