Finance Circular 98/03

Collection of Charges for Private Telephone Calls

In the past week or so, you will have received a printout from Computing Services detailing the external business telephone calls and private telephone calls made from your department over the past 3 months. As you will know, on the main University system, a business call is prefixed by 91 and a private call by 92.

In a recent internal audit, the procedures for the recovery of the cost of private calls were considered by the auditors. As a result, I am writing to remind you that:

  • staff making private telephone calls should properly record them by using the prefix 92, and
  • the department should collect funds associated with private calls wherever possible.

The cost of both private and business calls is automatically debited to your departmental account, so any non-recovery of private charges, or non-recording of private use, leads to a direct charge on departmental funds. Since the total annual charge for private calls across the University is about £30,000, there is a significant sum to be recovered from the private charges.

Malcolm Ace

Deputy Director of Finance

16/11/98