Leicester City Council
A fully managed void energy partnership
CLIENT
Leicester City Council — Local authority, managing 21,000 of social homes across the East Midlands.
THE CHALLENGE
Before working with TSM, Leicester City Council void team was spending weeks managing energy-related issues across an average of 70 void properties at any one time. The team was dealing with a number of UK energy suppliers in parallel, each with their own processes for void registration, debt clearance, meter resets and final billing.
Prepayment meter debt from previous tenants was blocking power at a meaningful proportion of properties, preventing contractors from starting works and delaying re-lets by an average of 18 days. Multiple final bills were arriving from suppliers the organisation hadn’t actively registered with, and key and card availability was a recurring pain point for housing officers in the field.
WHAT WE DID
TSM became Leicester City Council’s single point of contact for all void energy matters. Our specialist team took on the full lifecycle — from handover of keys to re-let readiness — across the whole portfolio.
Onboarded void properties to our fully managed service within 2 weeks
Centralised supplier liaison across every UK energy supplier relevant to Leicester’s portfolio, handling registration, debt clearance and reset on their behalf
Delivered remote prepay top-ups for void properties, so contractors always had power when they arrived on site
Posted electric keys and gas cards next-day to any property or office location, removing the need for staff to hunt for local shops
Issued RTI/reset codes directly with clear instructions for shop application where needed
Consolidated final billing into a single monthly statement across the whole void portfolio
THE RESULT
Leicester City Council now has a predictable, scalable void energy process that has delivered measurable improvements across cost, speed and team capacity.
£96,000
of historic void energy debt cleared within the first 12 months of the partnership
15 days
average reduction in void period length
95%
reduction in void-related energy admin hours for the in-house team
One monthly
consolidated bill replacing 120 separate supplier invoices
IN THEIR WORDS
“Based on our experience so far we definitely would not want to go back to dealing with utility companies direct and have signed up to work with TSM for the next 3-5 years.” — Leicester City Council
AT A GLANCE