Speaking Clock Costs Ministry of Defence £40k

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has spent more than £40,000 calling the speaking clock in the last two years.

Officials blamed a "technical error" for the spending after a ban on the famous number was not properly enforced.

The MoD told staff last year that they had to stop calling the clock on 123 and gave them information about websites where they could check the time instead.

But even with the ban, the final bill for 2012 was £18,804 and more than £6,000 was racked up this year before the problem was spotted.

When added to the £15,162 already spent in 2011, this comes to more than double the annual salary paid to a private soldier.

It means staff have made more than 130,000 calls to the line, which now cost 31p each, during the last two-and-a-half years.

The Ministry of Defence blamed a 'technical error'

The waste is embarrassing at a time when the Government is trying to make drastic savings to help rebalance Britain's finances.

An MoD spokesman said: "A ban was introduced to our newest telephone network, but due to a technical error with an environmental monitoring system there has been some inadvertent spending on the speaking clock which has now been stopped."

The speaking clock gets its time from the atomic clocks at the National Physical Laboratory and is accurate to within five thousandths of a second.

Run by BT, the number still receives tens of millions of calls each year despite people now having access to the time on numerous gadgets.

The clock announces the time every 10 seconds.

It was first introduced in Britain in 1936, when it was voiced by London telephonist Ethel Jane Cain who had won a competition.

Initially it was an electro-mechanical device. This was replaced with a magnetic drum in the 60s and then digital time in 1984.

Some of the famous voices who have been heard as clock include Gary Barlow, Chris Moyles and Cheryl Cole, who all took part for charity.

A Freedom of Information request reported this April revealed employees at the Palace of Westminster called the clock more than 2,000 times in the past year.

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