Rent arrears across West Lothian reached almost £5m in September as the roll-out of Universal Credit were compounded by bite of bigger household bills.
Nicola Hughes, the housing manager for Fauldhouse and the Breich Valley gave updated figures to the ward’s Local Area Committee.
Rent arrears in the ward rose more than £100,000 in a year from September 2021. The new figure for the second quarter of this financial year - July to September - stood at £816,701, a rise of £115,417 for the same period a year before.
READ MORE: West Lothian anti-poverty service helps families get more than £2m in unclaimed benefits
Across West Lothian the arrears figure was £4,780,804.
In her report Ms Hughes told the committee: “The overall increased arrears in comparison to last year are as a result of Full-Service Universal Credit being introduced in West Lothian from May 2018, along with other welfare benefit reforms and the current economic climate. In the same week last year Fauldhouse and Breich Valley ward had 464 Universal Credit (UC) households in arrears. Since then the number of UC households in arrears has increased by 7.8%.”
Universal Credit puts claimants a month to six weeks into debt by the way payments are calculated and made. The council has limited influence on how the benefit is administered. Housing officers work with individual tenants offering advice.
The number of tenancies in arrears in this ward has increased by 31 since last year. Small debt cases - £300 or less-, account for 45.6% of households. There are 212 serious arrears cases - of £1000 or more in arrears. These cases are 23.2% of all households in arrears in this area, containing 73.8% of the debt.
Despite the rising debts the housing manager said: “The [rent] collection rate remains excellent at 93.8%”
Councillor Pauline Clark said: “I have had few constituents get in touch to say they’re finding it quite difficult to get in contact with housing officers or housing options officers. I just wonder if there’s something that we could do. I think if people are struggling it would be better if we could improve
Ms Hughes said that if customers contacted the council through the contact centre then records would be passed on to the housing officers and officers would respond to anyone who was struggling.
In her report Ms Hughes added that housing officers made the best use of resources to contact tenants by phone, email or text to promote regular communication with them especially when managing arrears.
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