Tag Archives: Social Housing

AI, News

Sheffield tech firm launches AI to predict tenants’ rent debt up to six months before it happens

As social housing rent arrears hit £1bn earlier this year, an innovative tech firm has launched first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence (AI) to help housing associations predict when residents are likely to fall behind with their rent – up to six months in the future.

Pivigo’s Rent Arrears Prediction AI platform means social landlords can reduce the number of tenants struggling with debt and drive down lost rental income needed to run services and build new homes.

By predicting arrears early, staff can focus on positive prevention and support for tenants – including the most vulnerable – rather than focusing solely on recovering missed payments. According to the Chartered Institute of Housing’s #ShineALight campaign launched in 2020, around one in three social housing tenants in rent arrears are experiencing mental health problems.

The Pivigo platform is the first of its kind in social housing to predict rent arrears up to six months before they happen.

Alex Willard, CEO of Pivigo, said: “Our technology is giving social housing new-found abilities to see far over the horizon. We have trained our AI on tenancy data with multiple housing associations to develop an accurate and reliable model to predict future arrears and understand the likelihood of them becoming a long-term problem.

“We differentiate the high-risk cases from temporary ones, enabling social landlords to make better use of their resources to benefit both residents and the organisation.”

Using AI to predict who is most at risk of falling into arrears means income and support teams can contact the right tenants at the right time so they can avoid the stress and anxiety of being in debt.

It comes at a time when housing providers have seen a rise in rent arrears as the Covid-19 pandemic has affected residents struggling with furlough, reduced working hours and redundancy.

Pivigo, based in Sheffield, build and manage AI Services for social housing. This approach means that social landlords need little in-house IT expertise to benefit from AI, as the platform is cloud-based, deployed in 8 weeks and can be connected to existing housing management systems.

Alex added: “We want to make the benefits of AI accessible across the entire social housing sector, regardless of whether the landlord is big, small, tech-advanced, or on a budget.”

News

Fastflow Group makes Sunday Times PwC Top Track 250 for first time

Fastflow Group has made it into the Sunday Times PwC Top Track 250 for the first time, ranked 177th. Published on 27th September 2020, the Sunday Times PwC Top Track 250 league table ranks Britain’s leading mid-market private companies with the biggest sales – before the pandemic struck. In June 2019 Fastflow joined forces with United Living, substantially increasing the size and scale of the combined group.

The company provides essential gas, water and multi-utility infrastructure services to blue chip customers across the UK, as well as the development of new homes and planned and responsive property maintenance services for social housing and local authority clients. Chief executive and Chairman Neil Armstrong heads up the enlarged group and oversaw sales of £137.5m in 2019. Revenues this financial year are expected to reach £500m, so the company is hoping to again feature in the Top Track awards. The enlarged group has a secured order book of c£1.2bn and a pipeline of opportunities worth c£3bn.

Neil Armstrong, CEO and Chairman at Fastflow and United Living Group, said, ‘I see this accolade as recognition of the strength of our business and our people. We play a crucial role in society, helping our customers create a better future, often for the most vulnerable in our communities. Our role within infrastructure figuratively and literally helps the ‘keep the lights on’ and provide clean drinking water to millions of consumers. In short, our work is important, and I am immensely grateful to our people who continue to do their utmost to serve our customers’ energy, water and housing assets with exceptional levels of service, quality and commitment.”

Arif Ahmad, a Private Business Partner at PwC UK, the title sponsor of the league table, said: “There’s no doubt that 2020 has posed unprecedented challenges. But time and again, we’ve seen business leaders rising to that challenge, adapting their plans and taking the opportunity to innovate. This year, it’s more important than ever to recognise and congratulate the companies featured in the Top Track 250. They are the backbone of the UK economy and it’s our pleasure to work with them, at every stage of their journeys.”