HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has signed a £47m four-year contract with Global Crossing to move its communications onto a single IP platform.

The scheme will migrate all 90,000 department staff onto the hosted environment.

“HMRC is taking full advantage of the business benefits provided by technologies such as voice over IP (VoIP),” said a spokeswoman.

“Implementing VoIP will improve the flexibility of our telephone service, while reducing running costs.”

The system will also include intelligent routing technology so that peaks in demand ­ on tax return deadline day, for example ­ can be managed by extra staff working from home.

The IP platform will also integrate into HMRC’s desktop infrastructure, providing teleconferencing, presence alerts and meeting request systems.