Silent Calls
Treasury
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley, Liberal Democrat)
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to the answer of 30 November 2005, Official Report, column 525W, on silent calls, what estimate the Inland Revenue made in 2004–05 of the number of silent calls made from its offices and those of its contractors using predictive dialler technology.
Dawn Primarolo (Paymaster General, HM Treasury; Bristol South, Labour)
Full information is not available on the number of calls where contact was made but operators were not available and it is therefore not possible to make meaningful estimates.
HMRC recognises that silent calls can cause people concern which is why, when using an outbound dialler, a caller line identity is always displayed so anyone missing a call would have the option of calling the number back. Additionally HMRC configures its predictive diallers to ensure the minimum of silent calls in line with Ofcom guidelines.