Departmental Telephone Services

Mr. Oaten
To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families if he will consider the merits of securing accreditation of his Department's helplines to the Helplines Association's quality standard; and if he will make a statement.

Ms Diana R. Johnson
All of the DCSF telephone helplines on which we hold information centrally were contracted through COI (Central Office of Information).

All DCSF helplines run through the COI Framework have one or more of the following accreditations: Contact Centre Association (CCA), COPC (Customer Operations Performance Centre) and/or Customer Excellence. It is also mandatory for them to either have or be planning to attain (in the next 12 months) the standards ISO9001 (quality management) and the ISO27001 (information security).

There are no plans to use the Helpline Association's quality standard.