Luton Council: Homelessness - Phase 1
The Context
Homelessness is a significant issue across the UK, and the national picture continues to worsen. Exacerbated by the Cost of Living Crisis and a lack of affordable housing, more than 358,000 households in England contacted their local authority for support after being threatened with homelessness or losing their home in 2023-24, up more than 10% in a year.
For Luton, the problem is particularly stark: unemployment is consistently double the national average, and nearly 45% of Luton’s children live in poverty. This is all against a backdrop of above-average and rising rental and house prices. In 2023, there were 14.6 people in Luton assessed as homeless per thousand of the population, compared to 6.3 nationally.
As a result, Luton Council’s Housing Solutions Service was facing unprecedented demand. The resident and staff experience was suffering as a result, and the service was set to overspend by £3.8 million against its budget.
The Requirement
Luton Council’s Housing Solutions Service needed an actionable and achievable target operating model and implementation plan for improvement. Human Engine were commissioned to:
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Deliver a series of short-term improvements or ‘quick wins’
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Build on existing findings and recommendations
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Use this insight to develop proposals for more fundamental changes to contribute to the service’s transformation
This project formed part of Luton Council’s wider Transformation Portfolio, delivering lasting positive change in line with Luton’s 2040 Vision.
The Programme
As part of the project, seventeen quick wins were delivered. These included reviewing aspects of the customer journey, as well as ensuring staff are best deployed in the short-term to achieve maximum benefit.
In addition, discovery activities including customer journey mapping, interviews, and surveys informed the longer-term recommendations put forward. The final report was framed around three key pillars which summarise the customer journey:
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Prevention and Early Intervention
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Management and Managing Costs
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Relocation
Against each pillar, a transformation ambition was set out that had been co-created with stakeholders. These included associated targets and metrics to measure success. The steps to achieve this ambition were set out in the form of areas for improvement with accompanying priority actions. Recommendations included the purchase of assets to reduce the reliance on costly nightly-paid temporary accommodation, as well as innovative solutions for upstream prevention, including a Call Before You Serve scheme for landlords considering serving an eviction notice, and the utilisation of data to conduct informed proactive cohort outreach.
The Outcomes
The project provided Luton Council with actionable solutions to deliver over £4.5 million in savings. Furthermore, key measures of success were identified, allowing progress to be easily monitored going forwards. Not only do the recommendations put forward enable the service to balance its budget, they also deliver non-financial benefits: these include improved customer and staff satisfaction, partnership working maturity, and smart data usage.
The target operating model developed through this work therefore offers Luton Council a clear pathway to achieve sustainable improvements. The project equipped the council to deliver a cohesive, collaborative and customer-centric Housing Solutions Service that utilises data to inform actions and adopts streamlined processes which prioritise prevention, manage demand and empower staff and residents alike.
About Us
Human Engine is a Financial Times top-ranked management consultancy with specialisms in strategy, change, digital, commercial and projects.
It was founded in 2018 with a belief that the public sector deserves better than it gets from traditional consulting firms – more human, more personal and more knowledgeable of the reality of delivering modern public services.
We have worked with dozens of public sector organisations to help transform their strategies, operations and cultures to be more agile, commercial and entrepreneurial in order to achieve financial sustainability and improved outcomes for customers and communities.
Our mission is to help individuals and organisations to do the best work of their lives. We do this by blending first-hand experience of the problems we help our clients solve with award-winning consulting expertise and an approach based on trust, collaboration and partnership.
