Centralis News Desk

Transforming housing provision and application delivery

Centralis supports national housing and regeneration agency with merger

UK - March 26, 2009

The newly formed Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) is providing staff with access to core business applications via a new Citrix environment developed in partnership with IT consultancy Centralis.

Bringing together the functions of English Partnerships, the Housing Corporation and some of the work of Communities and Local Government and the Academy for Sustainable Communities, the agency was launched on December 1, 2008. Recognising the need for a practical and more efficient means of providing access to standard business applications, English Partnerships worked alongside Centralis to develop a solution while the transition to a single entity was made.

A discovery exercise was carried out to establish the business requirements of the Citrix project. In summer 2008 the existing infrastructure was reviewed to determine what would need to be scaled up and what was fit for purpose. Centralis built a solution scalable up to 1,000 users, based on Citrix’s XenApp and Netscaler products. Phase one of the project saw 500 users go live with the solution in December 2008.

The next phase of the project will be to migrate the remaining 500 users across to the new solution during 2009. This phase of the project will also see specialist applications used by the former Housing Corporation developed for delivery via a new Citrix Environment.

Executive quote

“The HCA reflects a new way of doing business and will transform how housing and regeneration is delivered across the UK. The approach it’s adopted towards desktop delivery will be integral to its future success,” said Ewen Anderson, managing director, Centralis. “We look forward to working with the HCA on the next phase of the project over the next year.”

Customer quote

“We see the flexibility and scalability provided by our Citrix environment as central to our ICT Strategy” said Tina Hughes, ICT Manager at HCA. The project’s fixed timescales meant that particularly close collaboration was required between the in-house team and Centralis. Excellent working relationships were established right from the off, and we look forward to continuing to work with Centralis in the future.”

About the company

About Centralis

Centralis is one of the UK’s leading independent I.T. consultancies, specialising in delivering applications securely to their point of use.

Formed in 1996, Centralis mission is to help customers reduce cost and improve business agility through innovative, award-winning solutions backed by top-level partnership with industry leading vendors, including Citrix, Microsoft and VMware.

Centralis provides consultancy, support, managed services and resale of selected products. Strong technical skills and commitment to delivering on time and to budget has led to long-term business partnerships with many customers across the private and public sectors, including Standard Life, Centrica, BUPA, Surrey County Council and many NHS Trusts and Universities.

Centralis remains independent, and wholly owned by employee shareholders.

About HCA

The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) is the national housing and regeneration agency for England. With an investment budget of over £5 billion per year, our scale and resources mean we can increase housing supply, and enhance people’s quality of life by creating and regenerating communities where people want, and can afford, to live.
Our vision is about creating opportunity:

For people to live in homes they can afford, in places they want to live.
For local authorities and communities to deliver the ambitions they have for their own areas.

We will match national targets with local ambitions and a strong regional presence, operating as a national organisation that delivers locally.
We aim to be a responsive, adaptable agency that will help local authorities and their partners meet shared objectives for housing and regeneration in their area.
Key stakeholders include local authorities, housing associations and developers. Those that benefit most from our work will be local people and places.
The Single Conversation is the HCA’s business model. This means that our regional teams will work with local authorities to develop a local investment plan for housing and regeneration. This will enable us to achieve national targets for growth, renewal and affordable housing in a sustainable way that is appropriate for each area.
Together with our partners, we will develop an understanding of local housing growth needs, how to improve areas through regeneration and how HCA investment can be used to meet the ambitions of these areas.

Contact details

For more information or photography, please contact Patrick Hussey at LEWIS, the PR agency:
Telephone: 0161 601 7740
Email: centralis@lewispr.com

Bookmarklets:

Recent Press Releases