Issue - meetings

As detailed in the recommendation.

Councillor Hughes introduced the Housing Rent Income report which provided details on the latest position for rent collection.

            As reported previously to Cabinet, there had been a significant amount of work undertaken over the last six months to stabilise the rent arrears position, with the work involving:

·         Increasing resources;

·         Introducing early intervention;

·         Adopting a more robust stance around the importance of paying non time; and

·         Investing in new technology

All of that work had come together and for the first time since 2016/17 rent collections were improving and rent arrears were reducing.  As detailed in the report, rent arrears in 2019/20, up to week 42, were £2.04M compared to £2.18M at the same point in 2018/19, showing a reduction of £143K.

The Chief Officer (Housing and Assets) said steady progress was being made to reduce rent arrears and that was being achieved as a direct result of:

·         Increasing resources;

·         Introducing an early intervention hub to assist those tenants at most risk of losing their homes;

·         Adopting a more robust stance around the importance of paying rent on time; and

·         Investing in Mobysoft ‘Rent Sense’ software.

            The Revenues service continued to take legal action as a last resort against those tenants who failed to engage and failed to pay rent on time.  With approximately 7,100 tenancies, just 20 evictions had taken place so far in 2019/20 for serious rent arrears after all recovery remedies had been undertaken by the Council and only after the judicial system was satisfied that everything could be done and had been done to support the tenant.

            The Revenues Manager said the impact of Universal Credit was evident on the graph in the report and despite the ongoing challenges of increasing numbers of tenants migrating away from Housing Benefit to the Universal Credit system, the housing service had worked hard to challenge the inevitable impacts that most social landlords experiences of rising rent arrears.

            Members welcomed the report, particularly the early interventions to assist tenants.

RESOLVED:

That the latest financial position for rent arrears in 2019/20 be noted.