Prisoners to pay a fairer price for calls

Providers of prison phone calls have been told by Ofcom to reduce their prices and renegotiate the contracts following a super-complaint issued to the regulator by National Consumer Council, Scottish Consumer Council (SCC) and Welsh Consumer Council (WCC), with the support of the Prison Reform Trust (PRT).

The main grounds of the super-complaint concerned the high cost of calls and how these appear unrelated to the cost of provision. A 30-minute call from a prison to a landline is currently over seven times more expensive than the equivalent call from a public payphone. The costs are so prohibitive that half of all calls from prisons last under three minutes.

The complaint also questioned the persistently high cost of telephone calls from prisons, at a time when costs for other basic telephone services have fallen by 60 per cent.

Research also suggests that prisoners are six times less likely to reoffend if they have a supportive family network to return to when they come out, and that almost half of people in prison lose contact with their families during their sentence.

Ofcom’s investigation supported revealed flaws in the original contracting process and concluded that the telephone service providers should renegotiate the existing contracts.

Please click here to read the press release.

Please click here to read Ofcom’s response to the super-complaint.

Please click here to read the super-complaint.

Takeaway health

The NCC would like to see restaurants and takeaway food outlets display nutritional information on menus so customers can work out how much fat, salt and sugar they’re eating.

Clear, up-front nutritional information on menus would allow customers to compare meals and choose healthier options.

However, a recent survey of seven of the UK’s leading takeaway restaurant chains showed that none currently display any nutritional information on their menus or menu boards. This, despite three-quarters of people asked by NCC stating that they would find nutritional information useful in takeaway restaurants, and two-thirds (61 per cent) saying they would use it to choose healthier meals.

Click here for our press release

Click here for our Takeaway health report

Click here for our consumer survey

An insight into the lives of the forgotten working poor

The latest report from NCC, 'More snakes than ladders? an insight into the lives of the 'forgotten working poor', has shown five million low-income workers, who don’t claim benefits and don’t have dependent children living with them, are being forgotten by government and business.

The report was launched at a successful event in the House of Commons with guest speakers Minister of State for Work and Pensions Stephen Timms MP and Director of the Social Market Foundation Ann Rossiter. MPs came along to pledge their support for our campaign to prevent the exclusion of the forgotten working poor in the public and private sectors, and increase awareness of the social and economic contribution they make.

The launch takes place at a time when the rising costs of basics such as food and fuel, additional charges to access or pay-for essential services, as well as the credit crunch, are having a disproportionate effect on the forgotten working poor.

Click here for our press release

Click here for the report

Click here to view a video of the case studies.