Written question asked by Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat) on Monday, 22 March 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 24 March 2010. It was answered by Phil Hope (Labour) on Monday, 29 March 2010 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Departmental Telephone Services

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health with reference to the answer of 22 October 2009, Official Report, columns 1654-55W, on departmental telephone services, whether his Department awarded contracts for the provision of services relating to the campaign-specific telephone lines and campaign-linked lines.

Answer: The majority of the 13 campaign-specific call centres and other campaign-linked lines that I referred to in my previous answer were contracted via the Central Office of Information (COI). The COI will have conducted their own tender exercises as appropriate.Three of the lines were not contracted via COI, two of these were commissioned with another Department while the other was commissioned through an agency.Supporting services for the call centres such as data management or the fulfilment of publication requests would have been commissioned in the same way.

Secondary information