15th May 2009
By Paul Gosling
Gross rent arrears with Northern Ireland social landlords rose by 154% in five years, according to a report by the NI Audit Office.
The NIAO report looked into the finances of the NI Housing Executive, a social landlord that funds other housing associations in Northern Ireland. Although the executive cut its own gross arrears by £3.3m between 2001/02 and 2006/07, it had to write off more than three times that amount in arrears to do this.
The NIAO found that the Housing Executive had only one performance target on arrears collection — that its year-end gross arrears should not exceed the previous year’s balance. It achieved this by high levels of debt write-offs.
Arrears collection by the Housing Executive declined both in absolute terms and in comparison with English social landlords. It is now below the bottom quartile of English performance.
Performance by individual housing associations varied significantly and statistical returns from associations on arrears were sometimes inaccurate, the NIAO added.
Auditor general John Dowdall’s report, published on May 6, recommended that social landlords increase their efforts to prevent tenants from falling into arrears in the first place.
The auditors advised the Housing Executive to revise its target-setting for its own arrears collection practices and for funded social landlords.
The Housing Executive was also warned that its practices on dealing with arrears did not conform to its own manual in many instances.
