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 Angela Sinclair asks: We know who you are. But where are you? |
This problem needs addressing
Angela Sinclair laments the growing reluctance of firms and public bodies to let us know where they are based
LAST week a letter from NHS Islington, previously Islington Primary Care Trust (PCT), arrived. Under the letterhead was printed only “Rachel Tyndall, Chief Executive, NHS Islington. Tel: 0207 527 1000.” No email or postal address. Why shouldn’t a statutory body tell the public where it actually is?
NHS Islington can continuously instruct the public from its hidey-hole (sorry, unstated location), but it seems curiously shy about telling the public where it actually is, so enabling the public to respond – except by phone.
I’m one of Britain’s nine million deaf people, and I find telephone communication extremely hard. A health authority should know about the Disability Discrimination Act.
The excuse that such bodies want to economise on secretarial work isn’t good enough. On each of their many desks stands a computer as well as a phone, and staff busily churn out documents to send to us. Shouldn’t they be encouraging the public to write to them? Don’t tell me telephoning is effortless, even for the majority with good hearing: maybe the line is busy, maybe closed because it’s 5.36pm, maybe the person you wish to speak to “isn’t at his desk” (in the loo perhaps or it’s his week off).
This address obscurantism is objectionable, especially from a statutory body. NHS Islington has plentiful means of communication – faxes and printers – and a budget to pay for them, but only allows Joe Public one loophole, the phone. What if you don’t have a phone – it’s not a legal requirement.
The practice of withholding postal addresses is becoming increasingly common. This may well suit firms meanly economising on secretarial staff, but often causes much inconvenience to the public – not only to deaf people. For instance, I need an address if I choose to pay a firm’s bill by cheque. Firms prefer to have their bills paid by direct debit, some even offer a discount for doing so, but if I prefer to pay by cheque surely I should have that choice?
There are good reasons for people to wish to pay by cheque – for which they will need the firm’s postal address. Energy bills are usually considerably lower in the summer months than in winter, so many people end the summer with their accounts in credit. Some firms, however, anticipating higher energy use in the following months, raise the direct debit sum they demand, ensuring that besides the credit they have already they continue to claim a surplus, sometimes by an excessive amount.
The customer has the right to question the sum demanded, but usually does not, because this means looking through past bills to justify a direct debit lower than the one the firm proposes. I did this once myself – laborious though I found the calculations – and succeeded in getting the direct debit proposed lowered by about 30 per cent). Others have also done so successfully. As few customers investigate so thoroughly, the energy firms accumulate tidy profit surpluses.
If you have only a firm’s number, you have to conduct any argument by phone. We all know what that’s like – listening to spiels of Option 1, 2, 3, none perhaps quite relevant, and then getting different operators who need the whole story repeated.
Without an address, you can’t write a proper account of the whole affair, explain your position and request corrections. The firm doesn’t want the bother of going into this – and evades it by not giving its address.
Another reason why it seems entirely reasonable to demand the hitherto routine practice of providing a firm’s address was shown in a recent TV programme about a scam. A householder with an urgent plumbing problem called a plumber’s mobile phone. He turned up, looked at the boiler and declared it needed a new part which he would have to buy. Keen for her repair to be achieved quickly, the householder handed over cash for him to buy the needed part. He drove off – and never returned. She rang his number but got no reply. Where is his workshop? She has no idea – since she had no address.
The conclusion is: expect and demand that both official bodies and commercial firms print their postal and email addresses clearly under their letterheads (not merely in tiny print somewhere at the page bottom). If they wish to explain their activities to you, and serve you, the client, honestly and helpfully, they should be entirely willing to reveal their location.
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