Energy giant British Gas is taking legal action against IT firm Accenture, which it claims was responsible for a reported £182 million loss incurred in sorting out a billing mess in one of its largest customer service debacles.

Centrica said it was suing Accenture, the global consultancy group, over the failed IT system which Accenture built and installed for its British Gas division.

Centrica claims that problems with the IT system – Project Jupiter - were at the root of a collapse in British Gas's customer service levels that cost the company thousands of customers during 2006 and 2007.

Centrica said the system faults became evident after the roll-out of the new customer billing system during 2006-07and it severely impacted on British Gas's customer service operations.

As a consequence, it said ''British Gas was forced to make significant investments to address the system failures and these investments are ongoing. It also incurred significant additional staff costs to manage the customer service issues.''

The company claims to have lost a million customers in  2006 alone.
 
`Project Jupiter' also forced British Gas to hire 2,500 extra staff and invest millions more pounds to fix the problems and make it work.

Complaints to Energywatch, the watchdog, about British Gas hit a record 14,001 in March last year.

The new IT system has become the focus of a multi-million-pound legal battle nationwide even as thousands of British Gas customers switched to a rival gas distributor.

Accenture, however, denied the accusations and described them as "baseless and without merit."

Accenture said it had met all the commitments and specifications set by Centrica, and had delivered the project on time and within budget. Centrica had also conducted extensive testing of the new system before formally accepting it, it added.

"Accenture rejects responsibility for the situation Centrica created," an Accenture spokes-man said. "Centrica directed the design, build and implementation of the Jupiter system and insisted on many of the features they now find problematic. At their own choice, after extensive testing, in March 2006, Centrica took over total control over all aspects of the system about which they now complain and has operated the system themselves for over two years,'' it said, adding, "Centrica is only trying to shift blame for a situation it created."

Centrica paid a total of £317 million for the implantation of the system.

British Gas, meanwhile, told consumers that gas bills could go up by another 30 per cent this year due to the continued increase in wholesale prices.