UCV Automation at Scale: Lessons from Vico Homes

Written by Rebecca Hargrave | Oct 2, 2026, 8:21:01 AM

In our recent webinar, Charlotte Wadworth, Business Planning Officer in Income at Vico Homes, shared how automation helped the organisation respond to rising verification volumes, achieve a 91% success rate, process claims in under one minute and maintain service through peak periods.

Charlotte took us behind the scenes of Vico Homes’ automation journey, from the pressures created by rising claim volumes to implementation during annual rent changes. She also shared the operational results, lessons learned and opportunities the organisation is now exploring across other manual processes.

Here are the practical lessons from Vico Homes’ experience and what automation could mean for housing providers looking to make Universal Credit Verification (UCV) faster, more accurate and easier to scale.

Sector challenges for UC verification

The DWP now requires housing providers to verify every tenant-reported rent change.
As Universal Credit (UC) caseloads grow, the additional workload makes manual verification increasingly difficult to sustain or scale.
According to GOV.UK, around 8.4 million people now claim Universal Credit (August 2026)*, increasing the volume of verification work across the sector.
During the April–May 2026 peak window, Voicescape customers submitted more than 250,000 UCV claims, representing £1.75 billion in annualised claim value.
During our webinar, 60% of housing providers reported feeling significant pressure on income teams during peak periods.

With the DWP now permitting automation tool to be used in the landlord portal, housing providers can replace this labour-intensive manual process with an approach that is scalable, compliant and fully auditable.

Where Voicescape UCV automation can assist

End-to-end UCV automation: As a trusted UCV partner, Voicescape’s UCV automation solution automates the five verification steps that would otherwise sit with your team, supporting the journey from the first request through to the final outcome.
Continuous and fully auditable: Verification runs every day, including weekends, helping teams keep claims moving without adding to their manual workload. Every stage is fully auditable, giving your organisation a clear record of each request and outcome.
Built to work at scale: Using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to address different operational challenges, Voicescape’s UCV solution has proven its ability to work at scale across more than 40 housing providers. It is compatible with major HMS and CRM platforms, and every implementation is tailored to the needs of the individual organisation.

Discover Voicescape UCV Automation

Vico Homes and their UCV automation journey

Vico Homes, formerly WDH, manages around 32,000 homes. Its growing UC caseload made scalable verification increasingly important.

Challenges prior to UCV automation

Before automation, Vico Homes manually processed verification for around 12,000 UC customers. As this number grew, the large operational pressure on the income team made a new approach essential.

“If we kept manual processing, it would have been a lot harder to get those claims processed within the timeframes given by the DWP.” – Charlotte Wadworth Business Planning Officer, Income from Vico Homes.

Journey to implementing automation

Vico Homes went live during annual rent change without prior testing. Despite some initial teething problems, close collaboration with Enterprise RPA (now part of Voicescape) meant issues were resolved quickly and requests could be raised to RPA developers and resolved within 24 hours.

Results and benefits of UCV automation

[Success rate = % of claims fully handled by the robot without manual intervention]

During annual rent change, Vico Homes maintained business-as-usual operations with no shutdown, enabling colleagues more time to continue supporting customers and sustaining tenancies through a peak period.

What’s Next? Vico Home’s evolution

Expanding automation into other manual processes

Combined Robotics Processing Automation (RPA) Impact

Fuzzy Logic and reconciliation process of UCV

Direct Debit Uprating (DDU)

10,045 DDU cases run by RPA

77 hours to complete the full DDU cycle

£300K+ Operational savings already delivered

+5% Former Tenant cash collection

-2.1% Current Tenant Arrears (CTA)

-40% reduction in arrears-related evictions

Vico Homes will continue working with Voicescape to identify manual tasks that can be automated as the organisation grows.

“We’re always looking at what else we can do and what Voicescape can recommend, such as what they are doing for other organisations that they can do for us.” – Charlotte Wadworth Business Planning Officer, Income from Vico Homes.

Watch the Full Webinar with Vico Homes

What automation can unlock for your organisation

Vico Homes’ experience shows how faster, fully auditable UCV verification can protect income, maintain service through peak periods and give colleagues more time to support customers.

54+ housing providers who attended our webinar showed the desire for potential automation on other areas within their income operations.

If you’re looking to use automation in your operations, speak to the Voicescape team today about a faster, fully auditable UCV verification process that can manage rising claim volumes and support officers through peak periods.

Speak to us about UCV automation

Interested in expanding automation elsewhere in income?

Discover our solution for handling Direct Debit uplifting.

References:

*DWP Universal Credit quarterly statistics, published August 2026 (Universal Credit statistics - GOV.UK)

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