Case Study: Lambeth Council achieves clearance of 2,600-case backlog and near-100% processing accuracy with Civica OnDemand

Managing the transition to Universal Credit at Lambeth Council

Lambeth Council faced a resource challenge during the gradual rollout of Universal Credit: it needed to keep processing housing benefit cases while vacancies left its permanent team understrength, but did not want to recruit staff for roles likely to disappear after the switchover. To bridge this gap, the council engaged Civica’s OnDemand service for flexible, experienced housing benefit officers.

Civica OnDemand supplied fully trained, remote officers who quickly familiarised themselves with Universal Credit processing, cleared a backlog of 2,600 housing benefit cases in six months and delivered close to 100% processing accuracy. The flexible Civica resourcing model scaled with demand, avoided recruitment and training costs, improved turnaround times and customer service, and led Lambeth to extend the Civica OnDemand contract through 2020.

Lambeth Council

Miranda Feasey

Head of Assessments and Customer Centre