Labour-intensive work

Housing providers must verify tenants’ information when they make new or amended claims for Universal Credit (UC). It’s a process that’s particularly onerous during the annual rent change, when thousands need to be completed in a short space of time. Graham Welsh is the Operations Manager for Customer Accounts at Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH):

“We have around 13,000 tenants claiming Universal Credit, so it takes about six to eight weeks of intense work to confirm to the DWP that the details are correct. That’s 31 income officers spending hours and hours on manual, repetitive tasks.”

New automation tool

MTVH was looking for a solution to this admin problem, and after a quick demo decided to implement our UC rent verification tool for NEC Housing. The tool checks the tenant’s personal information and rent amount – including relevant Service Charges – and populates seven fields in the DWP system automatically.

Failsafe implementation

Importantly, the tool lets the process complete on the DWP system but not submit, enabling customers to test whether the steps have been completed correctly before they confirm submission can go ahead.

Once staff are comfortable that everything is working correctly, the tool can manage the whole process from end to end and alert officers to any mismatches that need investigating further.

Great results

MTVH went live with the new tool in April 2025, taking on average less than 10 seconds to complete each check rather than up to 6 minutes previously. “The whole process was really easy and it’s a big relief for our officers.” says Graham. “NEC were really helpful as we got ready for go-live, and it’s great that you can see for yourself whether it’s working or not before you submit.”

For the next rent change, MTVH’s income officers will be able to stay focused on higher value work and Graham believes the tool will quickly pay for itself by reducing overtime costs.