Issue - meetings
Current rent arrears profiles
Meeting: 09/10/2014 - Housing Panel (Panel of the Scrutiny Committee) (Item 66)
66 Rent Arrears Analysis and Profiles 
PDF 266 KB
Officer: Helen Bishop, Head of Customer Services
Telephone: 01865 252233
Email: hbishop@oxford.gov.uk
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Background Information |
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At the Panel meeting in January, members agreed to review rent arrears on a six monthly basis. The report contains rent arrears data up to and including August 2014.
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Why is it on the agenda? |
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For members to review and scrutinise rents performance.
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Who has been invited to comment? |
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Helen Bishop, Head of Customer Services, and Tanya Bandekar, Service Manager for Revenues and Benefits, have been invited to present their report and answer Member’s questions.
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Minutes:
The Panel heard that Rent Arrears performance is ahead of target. The collection rate has improved despite more people now managing their own benefits.
A tracing service is being used to obtain the contact details of former tenants but this is not a debt collection agency.
The Panel queried the rise in average arrears for phase 3 direct payment cases. This response was received following the meeting:
The 11 cases in rent arrears is out of a total of 145 tenants that were transferred to direct payments in the third phase.
We have had five tenants that have switched back to receiving their housing benefit as a credit to their rent account due to not being able to sustain payments.
The reason for the overall increase in arrears was that two tenants were unable to pay their monthly payment at the end of the month. The team have contacted the two tenants and both accounts have reduced their rent arrears to previous month’s levels as a result.
The Panel heard that the City Council is on track to spend all its Discretionary Housing Payment money, although this was also the case at the same stage last year.
The Panel questioned what level of support tenants receive with the process of arrears escalations. Officers advised that personal contact is proactively made with tenants throughout the process, and agreed to provide case studies in a future Rent Arrears Report.
Meeting: 05/12/2013 - Housing Panel (Panel of the Scrutiny Committee) (Item 6.)
6. Current rent arrears profiles PDF 300 KB
Officer: Helen Bishop Head of Customer Services will support the Panel with this debate.
Tel: 01865 252233
Email: hbishop@oxford.gov.uk
At the last meeting Panel members asked to see more details on Council Tenant rent arrears.
Further information was requested on the profile of the rent arrears figures. In particular:
· The number of tenants in arrears who are affected by any of the benefit changes.
· Or are in the direct payments pilot.
· Alongside this the profile of the debt by number of weeks in arrears.
This information was not available when the agenda was published and will be circulated separately prior to the meeting.