The stark figures behind the cost of living crisis in West Lothian were revealed as rent arrears in Whitburn and Blackburn reached almost £1 million.
Across the county rent arrears are just shy of £5m. Rent arrears in Whitburn and Blackburn have surged by more than £110,000 since July, Graeme McKee a Housing Manager told a meeting of the local area committee.
Mr McKee, delivering the quarterly report on behalf of a colleague, said that the new figure for the three months from 1st July showed total arrears for the ward of £953,488.
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The West Lothian wide figure, across all nine wards, for the quarter was £4,780,804.
Mr McKee 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. At the same time last year Whitburn ward had 605 Universal Credit (UC) households in arrears. Since then the number of UC households in arrears has increased by 6.4%.”
Committee chair Labour’s Councillor George Paul asked for a breakdown across the communities in the ward for the number of UC cases - as well as a total number across the ward. This was backed by the SNP’s Mary Dickson.
“We need to know where the hotspots are”, said Councillor Paul.
Rent collection remains high despite the tightening financial squeeze. For the Whitburn ward the collection rate for the year to date in the quarter remains at 93.4%. Whitburn has collected £5,867,253 vs a charge of £6,279,498.
Mr McKee said: “Small debt cases, £300 or less, account for 47.6% of households. There are 245 serious arrears cases of more than £1000 in arrears. These cases are 17.7% of all households in arrears in this area, containing 63.6% of the debt.”
Answering a question from Councillor Dickson Mr McKee said that arrears of £300 represented six to eight weeks of unpaid rent.
Councillor Dickson asked for details on how Housing staff managed debt. A series of contacts are made with tenants including by letter and text messages. There are also offers of help from other council services such as the Advice Shops.
Chris Nelson from the Anti-Poverty Service stressed that his teams were able to work with tenants to confront debt and other issues.
He told the committee that it had managed more than £700,000 worth of debt in the Whitburn ward in the last year. In his report he outlined that thousands of enquiries had been dealt with .
“The Advice Shop has helped 2,124 customers to manage their money and to resolve benefit problems within the Whitburn and Blackburn ward. This resulted in 25,952 additional enquiries and contacts from these customers.”
Mr Nelson added: “Feedback shows this has a positive impact on individuals by increasing knowledge and understanding and ultimately improving the customer journey and empowering customers. The Advice Shop generated £4,033,838 in extra income and successfully managed £717,042 in debt within the Whitburn and Blackburn ward.”
Councillor Paul asked: “ Given these figures, how do you perceive it’s going to be in the next few months?”
Mr Nelson: “ We’ve already seen significant increases and significantly more complex cases. I would expect that into the new year we will expect that we’d see a significant increase but I wouldn’t like to put a number on it”
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