Rent arrears management practices in the housing association sector

management encourage Neighbourhood officers
and IOs to talk to each other as the latter do not
“know” tenants . The shift to one central location was
regarded as helpful in facilitating communication
between these different parts of the organisation,
although one officer commented that physical
proximity did not equate with interaction necessarily .
The motivations for restructuring were
performance – HA B was in the bottom 25%
of HAs for rent arrears performance and it was
felt that a “drastic change” was required – and
inconsistency between different area offices,
which management wanted to eliminate . After the
restructuring, the organisation found that specialist
IOs were organisationally more productive than
generic housing officers because, under the generic
regime, rent arrears management tended not to be
prioritised (as it was not regarded a “nice” part of a
housing officer’s job, unlike allocations) . The timing
was appropriate due to retirements in the remaining
generically managed office .
As IOs focus is now on rent arrears management,
there has been a significant improvement in rent
arrears recovery . Arrears figures have dropped
dramatically - down by nearly three per cent since
IOs became specialist (and were 1 .5% in 2008-
09) . Additionally, the Rent & Voids Manager feels
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much more in control now as in the past he could
not do anything about the remaining generic
office’s poor rent arrears performance .
HA C
HA C is a regional RP with 15,000 owned or
managed stock . It has a more traditional, generic
approach to rent arrears management in which the
management of individual tenant’s rent arrears are
one part of the role of Housing Officers (“HOs”),
although HOs are target-driven for rent arrears . A
Community Initiatives Adviser who advises tenants
on benefits supplements their work . This is an
important element of rent arrears management as
many tenants are not aware they are entitled to
benefits (or do not know how to claim them), which
may unnecessarily put them in arrears .
Rent arrears management is reactive, in that
action is taken when the customer is already in
rent arrears (although the policy is to contact a
customer early, within two weeks of arrears arising) .
Housing Officers spend one day per week entirely
on rent arrears cases . They also liaise with local
HB staff and present cases in court . Current rent
arrears performance is “very good” and targets are
being met .