UK Housing Association signs deal with ICL

The North British Housing Association is to install a communications system based on Windows NT as part of a £4.5m investment programme.

ICL will supply and maintain Microsoft BackOffice software, which will provide email, video conferencing facilities and systems management services. The contract is worth £500,000 and ICL will support the system for one year.

The association, which operates throughout England, hopes the ICL system will help it house its customers more quickly and efficiently, by improving internal communications. A spokesman said: "This is a small part of a major overhaul of information systems and we are a large, geographically dispersed organisation and information management is very important.

"We will be able to get information about what properties are available, matching up the customer with the property and dealing with repairs, faster and more easily. Then our staff, who are really too highly skilled to be tied to administrative jobs all day, will be able to go out and visit our customers in the community," the spokesman said.

Although the NBHA will have full use of the intranet from October, the system dealing with letting, maintenance and finance will not go live until April 1999. ICL said it is in discussions with the organisation to provide other elements of the investment programme.