UNIVERSAL CREDIT

Digital enablement for Universal Credit

Let Govtech’s digital service eCAPTURE UCDS (Universal Credit Digital Service), reduce the resources consumed in processing Universal Credit notifications from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Save resources and improve efficiencies

Working closely with our customers and drawing on over a decade’s experience of accurate and timely digital process automation, UCDS significantly reduces and simplifies the processing of HB Stop and LCTR Notifications.

By pre-assessing, cleaning, and filtering the daily files before they are imported into your R&B system, your accessors only need to facilitate cases that require action; thus, providing a sustainable means to manage a rising tide.
Remove-unnecessary-work

Remove unnecessary work

Less work is created, and better information is provided, reducing, and simplifying accessors’ tasks, so they only work on what is needed.

Save-resources

Save resources

Significantly reduce manually searching and matching data, as automation pre-matches and cleanses UC files.

Improve-data-quality

Improve data quality

As data is validated, filtered and pre-assessed, no more ‘raw’ files to cause mismatches, contradictions, and anomalies, with no relevance to LCTR.

Aid-compliance

Aid compliance

An audit trail is created for all notifications received, whether a notification was filtered out, if it was actionable, or non-actionable.

Agility-CTR-schemes

Agility for CTR schemes

Parameters can be changed to support local CTR eligibility rules, such as income banding; thus, granting long-term maintenance of claimant eligibility.

Increasing-volume

Manage increasing volume

Governance and grants change affecting LCTR work streams. Automation yields growing volumes and prioritises work queues.

Pre-assessing, cleaning and filtering UC daily files before they are imported

90%

properties and claimants matched

>1m

UC notifications automated per an annum

>5000

notifications processed a day

RH-UCDS-processUK councils handle receipt of UC Notifications received daily from DWP via ATLAS. UCDS is Govtech’s digital process automation service for validating, filtering, and pre-assessing HB Stop and LCTR files, before importing them into your R&B system. Accessors are therefore provided better information to facilitate cases, and those requiring no action, are automatically archived with a full audit trail.

  • Automation reduces and simplifies the processing of UC notifications
  • Decrease the associated workload with a growing LCTR work stream
  • Reduce time-intensive manual tasks
  • Only facilitate cases that require action

I’M INTERESTED

UCDS reduces workload and simplifies assessor tasks, which makes it an ideal invest to save proposition. Filtering reduces the number of work items created in the Benefits system, and by pre-matching and cleansing UC claimant, address and household member data, accessors work more productively, which accelerates throughput, generates efficiencies, and delivers cost savings.

  • Prevent your system being populated with irrelevant data; a process over time that may lead to system storage and performance issues
  • Eliminate unnecessary work, such as manually matching records that require no action
  • Improve quality and ensure consistency of DWP data with local CTR scheme eligibility
  • Change parameters at no cost, to support local CTR eligibility rules, and determine which notifications are filtered, or edited

UCDS enables councils to maximise data automation processing.

RH-UCDS-processLoading ‘raw’ files of DWP data into your Benefits system creates mismatches, contradictions, anomalies and work items with no relevance to LCTR. UCDS avoids this by pre-assessing, cleaning and filtering the daily files before they are imported.

The pre-assessment process effectively asks ‘what will happen if I load this file into the Benefit system?’. It then responds accordingly by filtering out, editing and/or aligning records with the Benefits system and local CTR scheme before the files are imported. Because of this, fewer notifications are loaded, data quality and consistency are improved, data matching rates rise significantly, and the information presented to assessors is transformed.

Notifications that require no action in the Benefits system are removed from the DWP file; instead, for audit purposes, a PDF rendition of the UC data is automatically archived in the Document Management System. Examples include Notifications relating to Supported/Exempt Accommodation, Temporary Accommodation, no active CTR claim, repeated HB Stops, etc. Audit reports list all Notifications pre-assessed by UCDS from both the UCDSStop and UCDSLCTR files and record the associated UCDS pre-assessment comments.

UCDS is a service, so you pay an annual service fee which is based on your CT Chargeable Dwellings, a published figure. There is no limit to the volume of transactions you can submit. 

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START YOUR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION JOURNEY

Do you want to reduce workloads and improve productivity?

Digital process automation can make it a reality. Invest in true digital transformation and realise the savings at once.

MANAGING A GROWING LCTR WORK STREAM

Adaptive to governance and change in circumstances

As the volumes of UC notifications increase, processing and checking eligibility is time intensive; without automation it can easily overwhelm benefits departments. Our customers told us this was an escalating issue. So we listened, and developed UCDS to solve this problem.

More than ever, keeping pace with changing governance and grant situations is sapping a huge amount of resource from R&B departments. In relation to the Coronavirus pandemic, we hear only too often that grants and credits are preceding other areas, with over 25% of entire R&B teams solely focused on processing these arrangements.

Grants and credit rules can change weekly and be introduced with little or no notice. Automation has significantly helped ease the burden, helping local councils react and fulfil arrangements. If your team is struggling, then please get in touch; we can help.

RH-Customers-Govtech
PROTECTING SERVICE STANDARDS THROUGHOUT THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
“Luckily for us, with many colleagues being moved onto grant work, having Govtech was invaluable and enabled us to maintain, as much as possible, the everyday administration of my service.” Martin Smith, Head of Revenues, Financial Resources | Bristol City Council

Taking back control of increasing ATLAS workstreams

Discover how UCDS helped Sandwell MBC reduce the workload associated with Universal Credit claims.

  • CT bill changes are accurate and up-to-date
  • Significant reduction in unmatched cases
  • 60% less time spent on each unmatched case
  • Assessors’ capacity increased by improved productivity
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Have you ever asked yourself...

  • How do I manage the Universal Credit workload associated with the daily Change Notifications?
  • Will the problems get worse? 
  • Does my current solution help, or is it just cluttering up CTS case histories with irrelevant change reports?

If so, then why not talk to us? Simply get in touch to explain what you need and explore how Govtech’s UCDS can help you.

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WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS SAY
“Working with Govtech on the automation of the LCTR prompts has quadrupled our productivity for the processing of the daily LCTR files. To my knowledge there is no other software solution that we have implemented that has had such an impact on processing times.” Louise Anderson, Senior Technical & Development Officer | Bassetlaw District Council
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