Starting with Empty Properties

In 2024, Birmingham City Council asked us to complete an Empty Properties Review. This fully managed service checks if properties that are registered as empty; genuinely are. This helps to maintain an accurate tax base and at a time when vital funds are needed by Local Authorities, can also trigger additional payments under the government’s New Homes Bonus scheme.

After reviewing more than 8,000 properties in just eight weeks, we found that 25% were incorrectly classed as being long term empty, leading to approximately £4.2m in additional revenue received in the form of New Homes Bonus once the records were correctly updated. The service had zero impact upon day-to-day operations at Birmingham because we took care of everything including all customer enquiries, visits to properties to verify occupancy and system updates.

Extending to other discounts and exemptions

After the success of this programme, Birmingham then asked us to complete a wider review of all discounts and exemptions, for example student disregards. Between January and April 2025, we reviewed more than 10,000 discounts and 2,000 exemptions, identifying a further £650,000 in revenue.

Reibina McGlinchey is Revenues Operations Manager at Birmingham City Council:

“As a council with 462,000 properties, dealing with more than 250k items of correspondence annually, we needed a service that identified additional revenue without adding to the pressure our team is already under. That’s what we got with NEC.”

Fully managed service, including all customer contact

Our discount and exemption reviews manage the whole process from end to end to enable busy teams stay focused. Here’s what we do:

• Request a data extract of the cases receiving discounts or exemptions
• Run a rigorous data matching exercise with Experian to validate correct claims
• Write to the remaining claimants and request evidence for their claim
• Manage all follow-ups and responses via phone, post and online portal
• Cancel claims as required, in full consultation with the council’s team

Lisa Haycock is the Section Manager at Birmingham City Council:

“For us, the whole process was seamless. We had regular catch-ups with our service manager and had full sight of timetables and plans. NEC dealt with everything from beginning to end, which was brilliant.”

Delivering great results

Amy Picken is our service manager who led this project for Birmingham:

“Their caseload is so high, we knew they needed a service that would deliver results without impacting their working day. By sensitively managing all contact with their customers, we were able to identify additional revenue while also keeping calls away from their contact centre.”

For Birmingham, this latest discount and exemption review has delivered excellent results in a short period of time.

For more information on the services that NEC Software Solutions can support Local Authorities with, please visit of business processing page.