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<p>The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) current policy is that calls to claim
benefit should be free so it uses 0800 telephone numbers for these calls. The Department
uses 0345 telephone numbers where its customers call for other reasons, and these
are calls that typically take less time to resolve. If a customer raises concerns
over the cost of a call, we will offer to call them back.</p><p> </p><p>Calls to 0345
numbers cost no more than a standard geographic call, and count towards any free or
inclusive minutes in a caller’s landline or mobile phone contract. Therefore we are
unable to calculate the overall cost to callers to our 0345 service lines. The Department
currently provides around four hundred 0345 telephone numbers.</p><p> </p><p>During
the period 01/11/2015-31/10/2016 DWP received over 34 million calls to its 0345 telephone
numbers and, therefore, calculating the average call duration for each line would
incur a disproportionate cost to the department.</p>
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