Birmingham City Council
Local authority housing
The context
Birmingham City Council faced a rise in housing disrepair claims from roughly 40 to more than 300 new claims a year. Repairs records, legal correspondence and housing notes were held separately, and establishing the history of a claim routinely took four to six weeks. Average damages and claimant costs were £14,000 per claim, before the authority's own legal costs. Claims expenditure was putting further pressure on repairs, while incomplete records, regulatory concerns and friction between housing and legal teams made improvement harder.
The work undertaken
- The work began with triage of 240 live claims, agreed settlement parameters and a combined-file protocol requiring repairs records, tenancy history and photographs within ten working days of a claim letter.
- Legal, repairs, housing and IT colleagues redesigned the process, linked records in a single case-management system and introduced a substantive first-response standard of 20 working days.
- A repairs-first approach addressed genuine defects alongside the litigation response. Frontline officers received evidence training, supported by monthly learning from concluded claims.
- Quarterly tracked savings were ring-fenced for targeted stock improvements. Claims patterns informed asset management, and a resident guide explained the repairs reporting route.
The outcome
- After 18 months, average cost per claim had fallen from £14,000 to under £5,000, and claims proceeding to litigation had dropped by 70%.
- New claim volumes halved; 85% of new claims arrived with a prior repair history on file.
- Ring-fenced investment funded full refurbishment of the three worst-performing blocks. Regulatory engagement closed without a downgrade.
- Legal and housing teams worked to a shared dashboard and targets, and both vacant litigation posts were filled.