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By Polly Raymond, 10 September 1998 00:30

NEWS The UK Inland Revenue has chosen telecoms company Energis over BT and Cable & Wireless Communications (C&WC) to monitor and revamp part of its phone system. The contract will replace BT and C&WC services - the incumbent suppliers for the outgoing telephony systems. Martin Nolan, account manager at Energis, said: "The Inland Revenue replaced BT and C&WC systems with our services because they couldn't compete with the cost savings and monitoring services we offer." Energis will begin the contract - worth £6m - within a six month period of intensive monitoring of the department's outgoing phone system. The aim is to identify efficiencies and bottlenecks, produce management reports and install the best system based on these observations. Nolan said the Department will use these management reports well after the two year contract has ended with an eye on future developments such as virtual private networks (VPN). "The Inland Revenue wants to shake its big ogre-like, governmental department image to become more customer-orientated," he said. According to Nolan the plan is to centralise tax offices in certain regions and the improved telephony and VPN developments will make this possible. The Inland Revenue has retained BT and C&WC services in all other areas and has no plans to replace them, according an Energis spokesman.