This is the way that many Government Departments work these days.
With call centres they have a computer in front of them and employees are required to give the scripted answer, it is okay for them to put it in their own words but they must not provide anything more than what their outline provides. If they feel they have not answered the question then they can forward the call onto another Department to officers of a higher ranking and who are generally more knowledgeable. If they can't answer the question they usually have some procedure that can be followed so that the individual can get the information they need but it requires some firmness by the enquirer to motivate them to find someone who can answer the question.
Often when someone writes in to a Department with a question a similar process is followed. There is a pool of employees who have been given the authority to attempt to respond to the letters and again they can only provide answers within a scripted response, again they can put the answer in their own words. The more thoughtful employees will recognize that they can't answer a question and will not do so, this means that the letter must be passed on to more senior officers to answer them. Unfortunately, the initial employee doesn't want to pass on too many letters as it makes them look useless, not appreciating that a basic reply to a person is just as useless anyway. Generally all the letters they recieve have to be responded to and are logged onto a system and a turn around time for response has to be adhered to, according to their procedures.
These days I do not accept a superficial answer and I will rewrite to the Department. I will include my first letter and the response recieved. In my new letter I then explain what specifically was not addressed in the initial letter and ask for a more detailed and specific response. They must respond to the new letter and by providing the previous response they understand that they cannot get away with a superficial response again. This normally provides me with a much more detailed answer, if not I would continue the same process, advising in the new letter exactly what I was still seeking the answer to.