Rent arrears management practices in the housing association sector

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National survey of housing associations This was conducted as an online survey targeted on all individual HAs (rather than group entities) owning more than 1,000 general needs housing as at 1 April 2008 . In all, these numbered 361 . However, 18 of these were excluded on the basis that they were recently established stock transfer landlords, which would be unable to respond to questions about policy and practice over the past three years . In all, therefore, eligible associations totalled 343 . In total, 226 returns were received . Because a few of these were group-wide responses representing two or more individual associations, the number of registered social landlord entities covered by the responses totalled 239 . The adjusted response rate was therefore 70% . The rate was slightly higher rates for stock transfer HAs (72%) . Because this was also true for larger associations (those with more than 10,000 dwellings (74%)) the coverage of the survey was somewhat greater than 70% in terms of the proportion of association dwellings owned by participating landlords . 24 Case study fieldwork – selection Given the diversity of practices revealed by the national survey, it was decided to investigate practices in more detail via six case studies focusing on selected HAs . That would enable sufficient variation to be accounted for in the case study selection, as well as potentially enabling us to access a wide variety of practices, policies and procedures in relation to rent arrears management and court use . As summarised in Table 1 .1, the chosen associations were a fairly diverse selection . Our approach to selection is more fully described in Annex 2 . We took the view that participant HAs should be drawn only from those which responded to the survey data, because those who failed to take part in that aspect of the study (despite repeated requests to do so) were considered unlikely to be willing to engage with more detailed and potentially time-consuming fieldwork . However, we did conduct one further interview during this phase with a national RSL, which was also a high user of Ground 8 .
Table 1.1 – Case Study HAs Organisation Use of Ground 8 of arrears – % of 07-08 HA Status Size Region management arrears evictions A Non-Transfer Very Large National Specialist 40 .3 Audit Commission Inspection outcome/ prospects B Non-Transfer Medium North Specialist 66 .7 Fair/promising C Non-Transfer Medium North Generic 44 .2 Fair/promising D Transfer Medium South Specialist 70 .2 Good/promising E Non-Transfer Very Large South Specialist 9 .4 F Non-Transfer Medium South Specialist 0 Case study work In each case study, 6-7 semi-structured interviews were conducted – the data collection instruments appear at Annex 4 – with the following participants: • HA staff, including senior manager; front-line staff responsible for rent arrears management; court officers (where these were different) • interviews with tenant representatives and advice agencies • interviews with local legal practices representing both tenants and HAs In addition, case study HAs’ local procedure manuals were collected to complement accounts of organisational practice as detailed by housing manager interviewees . Prior to each case study visit, the relevant HA was asked to self-collect data on a cohort of recent possession cases, which had resulted in eviction – the most recent 10 cases where Ground 8 had been used, and 10 where it had not been used . This proved to be an effective mechanism for accessing data, which might otherwise have been unavailable to the researchers for data protection reasons; but those reasons were overcome by the HA data Rent arrears management practices in the housing association sector 25
Page 1 and 2: Rent arrears management practices i
Page 3 and 4: Contents Executive summary . . . .
Page 5 and 6: Executive summary Introduction This
Page 7 and 8: Key underlying factors were said to
Page 9 and 10: could, in part, reflect the growing
Page 11 and 12: overpayments and suspensions were p
Page 13 and 14: Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Backgrou
Page 15 and 16: arrears management and related aspe
Page 17 and 18: “… there may occasionally be ci
Page 19 and 20: under Article 8 of the Convention,
Page 21 and 22: y HAs . 37 The Circular informed as
Page 23 and 24: Pre-action protocol for possession
Page 25: The purpose of these interviews was
Page 29 and 30: Chapter 2 Rent arrears management p
Page 31 and 32: Pawson et al’s study found that 9
Page 33 and 34: 2.3 Rent arrears management practic
Page 35 and 36: this with any certainty . 69 Howeve
Page 37 and 38: authority can also lead to a lack o
Page 39 and 40: 2.5 The use of Ground 8 Although th
Page 41 and 42: In the Hunter et al study, 97 which
Page 43 and 44: some comment on the effect of the P
Page 45 and 46: • Ground 8 provided certainty to
Page 47 and 48: There was a difference of opinion a
Page 49 and 50: 3.3 The use of Ground 8 Whereas ans
Page 51 and 52: do so early enough, or at all . Cla
Page 53 and 54: Chapter 4 Rent collection and arrea
Page 55 and 56: 4.3 Housing Benefit service perform
Page 57 and 58: Table 4.3 - Housing association evi
Page 59 and 60: As shown in Figure 4 .1, CORE data
Page 61 and 62: were collected for landlords with l
Page 63 and 64: Most associations report initiating
Page 65 and 66: 5.2 Organisation of rent arrears ma
Page 67 and 68: Table 5.2 - Primary structure of ar
Page 69 and 70: Table 5.3 - Recent changes in organ
Page 71 and 72: Table 5.6 - Staff training provisio
Page 73 and 74: Within the transfer landlord cohort
Page 75 and 76: • Where arrears were accrued befo
Page 77 and 78:
Table 5.9 - Estimated percentage of
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elatively high response rate achiev
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The survey sought to collect statis
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Ground 8 actions typically accounte
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How is the scale of Ground 8 use ch
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already routinely exercising the ac
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Chapter 6 Case study evidence Chapt
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Annex 2 outlines our method, includ
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a couple of weeks to three months)
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to officers and policies . Officers
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RM put it, “caused uproar from te
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preferred form of the organisation
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tenant contacts are now recorded on
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as a result, would make an order un
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use - in these cases, it is viewed
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g) The tenant perspective In each c
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Ground 8 was generally to scrutinis
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Ground 8 was said to be used as a
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The key stakeholders regarded the P
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ule it would not be used where HB w
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Table A1.1 - Evicted households by
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uncontactable as a result) . Where
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Just under half of all cases in the
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Annex 2 Case study HA selection Our
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Annex 3 Profile of case study housi
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However, after a review across its
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as developing joint working with th
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Annex 4 Case study topic guides HA
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19. What has been your recent exper
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12. How are your tenants helped wit
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9. If RSLs rely on Ground 8, what i
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4 Tenant employment circumstances (
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10 Value (£) of arrears at defined
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