Melin Homes is now Hedyn. Melin merged with Newport City Homes in 2025 to create a new association and are known as Hedyn. The UC BOT was introduced to Melin prior to the merge.
Melin covered five Local Authorities and had 4500 properties from Powys to Newport. Melin started by testing the with Social Housing and Debt Consult Solutions in May 2024 and went fully live in October 2024.
The DWP LLP Challenge
Melin manually processed the rent verifications on the ‘To-Do’s’ in the DWP LLP for new UC claims, CoC’s and the annual rent uplift in April each year. This was a manual exercise and took many hours of staff hours annually. Delays in verification slowed resident support and human error caused extra delays.
Resolution
Installation of the UC BOT has saved staff time and increased accuracy, providing a better service for the DWP and residents. Benefits included:
Automating submissions to the landlord portal
Instant SMS alerts to tenants confirming their housing costs
Exportable reports of upcoming UC payments
Opportunity to Data Cleanse system data
Impact for Melin
Melin found the UC BOT invaluable during April 2025 when verifying the rent increase verifications, having 2000+ UC Claimants. Prior to the UC Bot installation, 15 staff were diverted from their core duties on a rota basis for the month of April to complete the verifications. In April 2025, one assistant ran the UC BOT twice daily and completed any cases that were rejected by the UC BOT manually. This took approximately one to two hours per day. This was a significant saving in resources and increased accuracy in completing the verifications. Maria Jarvis – Income Recovery Team Leader
Staff Time Impact – 142 hours saved, even though the number of UC claimants increased by 500
In the financial year 2024/25 Melin verified around 1800 UC claims at an average of six minutes per claim (180 hours of staff time) as some staff only used the LLP in April each year and took longer to complete a verification than those who use the LLP daily. In the financial year 2025/26. The Automated UC Landlord Plugin verified 2300 on average in 2 seconds per claim (38 hours of staff time).
Data Accuracy Impact – Increased efficiency saving DWP and Melin further resource to rectify errors
The plugin has removed human error from manually typing in rent values. This has ensured the data is right first time and reduced the need to resubmit.
Customer Service Impact – Vulnerable residents have been able to access support more quickly ensuring their claims are not cancelled due to ‘To-Do’s on their UC journals going uncompleted
Staff have been able to continue with their core duties in April, which has ensured that the support available to residents have not been negatively impacted.
Resident Benefit Impact – Residents not having a delay in receiving benefits causing hardship and rent being paid on time
Processing the verifications much quicker meant residents were getting their full UC entitlement without delay and not having to wait for backdated payments of UC.