Halton Housing has automated most of its universal credit processes using Infinity Group’s BrikHousing software, with its UC processing cut from five weeks to just 10 hours.
Halton Housing processes over 3,000 rent verifications every year for tenants receiving universal credit. Before the introduction of BrikHousing, one member of staff would spend five weeks manually updating each change on the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) portal, leaving tenants waiting and wondering about their housing costs.
Chris Featherstone, head of finance operations, Halton Housing, said, “Our rent support team had to spend endless hours on repetitive data entry while tenants waited for answers about their homes. Now, what used to take one person five weeks of tedious work happens automatically in just 10 hours.
“This isn’t just about saving time, it’s also about giving our tenants peace of mind. They get accurate calculations of their benefits faster and our team is no longer drowning in paperwork.”
The transformation began after Infinity Group, working with North Star Housing, developed a solution using Microsoft’s Desktop Automate technology. Rather than staff having to manually upload thousands of rent changes, the system automatically handles 350 updates per hour.
Since April 2025, Halton Housing has automated 65 per cent of its annual rent submissions, with plans to increase this further through better data preparation.
Paul Croston, director of technology, digital and data, Halton Housing, said, “This is a brilliant example of using technology that provides assurance to our tenants while also delivering major benefits to our colleagues.”
In common with most other housing providers, Halton Housing’s processes weren’t just slow, they were risky as well. Human errors in calculations could leave tenants facing unexpected arrears or incorrect benefit amounts. The new system has eliminated these mistakes while creating a full audit trail for every case.
Featherstone said, “We’ve since discovered data errors that we would have never caught before. The system has become our safety net, protecting both customers and our organisation from expensive mistakes.”
