Automating £11M of childcare cost payments every month

Application build and support

The Project

Universal Credit is responsible for paying 5.5 million families, totaling £140 million in payments daily.

Childcare costs are eligible under UC. Each month, over 50,000 childcare cost claims are reported late. The current process of paying childcare costs requires manual processing by agents, including writing letters to claimants and making payments. Childcare costs account for 10% of all under and overpayments handled by agents. Our task was to identify underpayments that could be automated at minimal cost, offering the highest value through automation.

Our Approach

Our initial focus was to determine which underpayment should be automated first. Using data analytics, we found that underpayments due to childcare costs for the previous month were accepted 97% of the time.

We collaborated with stakeholders such as policy, operations, fraud, and error to design and implement a solution for identifying when it was safe to automatically pay childcare costs based on agreed criteria.

The Results

Now, £11 million in childcare costs is automatically processed each month, covering 45,000 transactions that previously required manual processing. We developed a scalable solution that lays the groundwork for automating other types of over and underpayments, providing ongoing cost savings to the department. The feature received exceptional feedback, noted by a 95% agent satisfaction rating.