Number and Cost of Telephone Calls

You asked

I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act.

Please could you provide me with the following:

1. The total number of calls made to 118 numbers over the past three years up to and including June 2016. Please could you break this down year by year. Please could you provide a figure, in pounds sterling, for how much these calls cost. Please could this also be broken down by year.

2. Please could you also provide a figure for the number of calls made to numbers beginning with “0871”, “0872”, “0873” and “090” over the past three years up to and including June 2016. Please could you break this down year by year. Please could you provide a figure, in pounds sterling, for how much these calls cost. Please could this also be broken down by year.

3. Please could you also provide a figure for the number of calls made to “118 118” over the past three years up to and including June 2016. Please could you break this down year by year. Please could you provide a figure, in pounds sterling, for how much these calls cost. Please could this also be broken down by year.

4. Please could you also provide a figure for the number of calls made to “118 500” over the past three years up to and including June 2016. Please could you break this down year by year. Please could you provide a figure, in pounds sterling, for how much these calls cost. Please could this also be broken down by year.

5. Please could you also provide a figure for the number of calls made to “118 111” over the past three years up to and including June 2016. Please could you break this down year by year. Please could you provide a figure, in pounds sterling, for how much these calls cost. Please could this also be broken down by year.

6. Please could you also provide a figure for the number of calls made to "09020442408" over the past three years up to and including June 2016. Please could you break this down year by year. Please could you provide a figure, in pounds sterling, for how much these calls cost. Please could this also be broken down by year.

7. Please could you also provide a figure for the number of calls made to "6442408" over the past three years up to and including June 2016. Please could you break this down year by year. Please could you provide a figure, in pounds sterling, for how much these calls cost. Please could this also be broken down by year.

If there is any guidance issued to staff on what numbers they can/cannot call, please can you provide this. Likewise, if there is a list of barred numbers, please could you provide this.

If FOI requests of a similar nature have already been asked could you also please include your responses to those requests.

We said

Questions 1,3,4 and 5 - ONS staff cannot dial numbers beginning with 118. This is not based on any specific restrictions, but rather is because those telephone numbers have been introduced subsequent to our telephony systems and have never been configured. Therefore no calls have been made to these numbers over the past three years.

Questions 2,6 and 7 - ONS has investigated the current and historic invoices and bills and can confirm that they do not hold this level of granular detail.

No specific guidance is given to staff regarding numbers that should not be called, outside of our current ICT policy (attached)

ONS does not hold a list of barred numbers, nor has it received a similar Freedom of Information request in the past.