Lambeth Council & Lightning Reach: Transforming Access to Housing and Financial Support
- Alice Dibblin
- 7 days ago
- 5 min read
Lambeth Council has partnered with Lightning Reach to transform how it supports residents facing financial challenges and housing insecurity. Through a single digital portal, the housing team can proactively connect residents to tailored support, enable homelessness prevention and manage applications for council schemes.
The approach has reduced administrative burden for housing officers, improved speed and quality of support for residents, and enabled earlier, more targeted interventions.
The challenge
Lambeth’s housing teams support residents with a wide range of needs, from rent arrears and council tax debt to homelessness risk and wider cost of living pressures. Previously, residents often had to navigate multiple systems and repeat information across different routes within and outside of the council.
For housing officers and contact centre staff, this resulted in long calls, manual document handling, and limited time to focus on prevention or tailored support for the most vulnerable households.
The solution
Lambeth implemented the Lightning Reach portal to empower residents to access holistic, personalised access to support, including national and local schemes within the council as well as the wider Lightning Reach network.
Through the portal, residents can:
Self-serve and apply for a wide range of support across 2500+ schemes (covering grants, social tariffs, energy/money advice and other vital help)
Apply for housing and homelessness support from the council
Apply for Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) and Discretionary Council Tax Support Hardship Payments (DCTSHP)
Upload supporting documents digitally and securely
Complete benefits checks and identify unclaimed entitlements
Housing and contact centre teams use the portal to triage cases more effectively, ensuring residents are directed to the right support at the right time. The portal is also integrated with the council’s NEC system, reducing duplication and manual processing for housing staff.
Impact for residents
To date, Lambeth has connected 9,400 residents to support through the Lightning Reach portal. Collectively, residents have accessed £342,000 in financial support, with the most common types of help including energy and utilities, food and essential items, and furniture and appliances.
Residents have also completed benefits checks through the portal, identifying £569,000 in additional benefits entitlement.
Millicent, a Lambeth resident facing financial challenges, was signposted by the housing team to the Lightning Reach portal. Through the platform, she was able to quickly find and apply for £500 support for essential household costs, easing immediate financial pressure. The streamlined process reduced stress at a critical point and helped her access the right support without repeated apointments or paperwork.
For housing officers, the ability to quickly match residents to appropriate support has reduced the time taken for tenants to find help from an average of 45 minutes to just 5 minutes.
Belinda Lord, Revenue and Charges Manager at Lambeth Council says: “The team has had huge benefits using Lightning Reach and referring our tenants to this process. It saves them a whack of time, providing the right links and the right information, and it’s helped our residents. I definitely recommend the use of Lightning Reach.”
Valerie, an Income Officer at Lambeth Council, adds: “The best thing about it is our tenants feel seen because they are given what they need at the right time.”
Reaching residents most in need
Data from the Lightning Reach portal shows that the housing service is successfully reaching residents facing the greatest financial pressures:
86% of Lambeth residents using Lightning Reach have a monthly income of less than £1,000
73% receive benefits
67% are female
79% come from ethnic minority backgrounds
This demonstrates that the portal is effectively supporting those most affected by housing insecurity, poverty and the cost of living, while improving access to support for groups that are often disproportionately impacted.
Supporting homelessness prevention
Lightning Reach also plays a key role in Lambeth’s homelessness service by improving digital triage and the quality of information captured at the point of application.
Between January and December 2025:
1,600 homelessness applications were submitted via Lightning Reach
83% included supporting documents (up from 0% previously)
59% of applicants completed an ID check
Call handling time for initial triage reduced by 67%
Appointments reduced by 13%, as residents received clearer guidance earlier
30% of applicants have accessed additional support of £40K (including grants and financial support) through Lightning Reach.
As part of Lambeth’s wider homelessness transformation programme, this has contributed to:
A 15% reduction in overall homelessness applications
A 55% reduction in new placements into temporary accommodation
A 6% reduction in the number of households in temporary accommodation
By improving early triage and signposting, the housing service is reducing unnecessary applications and appointments, while ensuring that cases with the highest risk progress quickly.
Jason, a teacher who was out of work due to health issues, was supported by Lambeth’s housing team and referred to the Lightning Reach portal. Alongside receiving housing advice, he used the portal to identify additional help and secured a £750 grant to support living costs while seeking work. Access to financial support helped stabilise his situation and reduced the immediate risk of homelessness.
Managing discretionary schemes
The Revenue and Benefits team also uses Lightning Reach as an application route for their discretionary schemes.
To date:
410 applications have been submitted for DHP and DCTSHP through the portal
The average award value is £700
Applications take residents around 15 minutes to complete
Nearly 70% of applicants upload documents digitally
Operational benefits for Lambeth Council
The use of Lightning Reach has delivered clear operational benefits for Lambeth’s operational teams:
Reduced call handling times and fewer follow-up contacts
Less manual re-keying of information and document handling
Improved data quality through upfront document submission
More capacity for officers to focus on high-value activities, such as supporting complex cases and the most vulnerable residents
Following the NEC integration, housing applications and documents now flow directly into council systems. As Clare Harding, Assistant Director of Transformation at Lambeth Council, explains: “With the time saved, their role now focuses on tasks that add value, like supporting applicants in preparing for their appointments.”
Reflecting on the partnership, she adds: “It’s nice to work with an organisation that has that can-do approach, like, ‘how can we help with that?’ and for things to happen quickly. Knowing that you can come into a conversation with Lightning Reach and focus on solving the problem makes a real difference.”
Looking ahead
Lambeth continues to embed Lightning Reach within its housing service, using data from the platform to strengthen homelessness prevention, target early support, and improve outcomes for residents.
As Chris Flynn, Assistant Director of Homeownership & Rents, says: “We’re really pleased with the results from our pilot with Lightning Reach and the feedback from residents, and how it’s helping to transform how our residents access support. We’re looking forward to continuing our partnership and progressing towards our shared mission to deliver a seamless, end to end support journey to provide a single point of entry for a holistic range of local and national support that residents can access to get the timely support they need to improve their financial wellbeing.”
Interested in seeing how Lightning Reach can work with your organisation? Get in touch at partnerships@lightningreach.org