Income management and arrears recovery is a priority as rent is our main source of revenue income. This policy sets out the principles and overall approach to the collection of rents, service charges, estate charges, heating charges, former arrears sundry charges and recharges. It establishes how we; prevent arrears, manage arrears and ensure that effective and appropriate action is taken to maximise income, reduce debt, and the recovery of former customer debts whilst understanding and responding to the financial difficulties customers encounter.
The policy applies to all properties owned or managed by Great Places Neighbourhoods, Plumlife and Independence and Wellbeing services. This policy is supported by detailed income recovery and arrears guidance for colleagues.
An effective income management ethos not only prevents customers from falling into debt but ensures that they can sustain tenancies and reduce their chances of becoming homeless.
Our approach enables the delivery of the Vision in the Great Communities section of the Corporate Plan; ‘helping to deliver core services, create sustainable communities and help us in reducing poverty and improving lives for our customers. It supports our Values ‘We are fair, open and accountable’, ‘We know, respect and care about our customers’ and ‘We promote partnerships, efficiency and value for money’.
These services help us collect our main income stream where effective performance is critical to the financial health of the organisation.
We recognise that many customers are being heavily impacted by the cost of living crisis and this policy seeks to reinforce the importance of maintaining a well managed rent account whilst offering support to customers experiencing difficulty in paying for their housing costs.
We follow regulatory and legal requirements including ensuring that social and affordable rents are increased in accordance with Government guidance, and that we follow a fair and transparent process in taking enforcement action which can include repossession.
Great Places has signed up to a number of sub-regional commitments to ending homelessness including a pledge not to repossess homes where the household can demonstrate they are working to resolve their rent arrears issues.
We support customers in a number of ways in line with our Financial Resilience approach, we do this by:
This Policy supports the organisation in managing the corporate risk GC4 ‘failure to manage the impact of customer poverty and financial hardship on the inability to pay rent’.
This policy is designed to achieve the following outcomes:
We will apply the following principles when dealing with customers; Detailed operational guidance in the form of workflows and guidance notes provide further operational guidance on how we will achieve these objectives and monitor the impact of these actions.
This policy embodies the principles of the Service Delivery frameworks:
Our approach is designed to prevent customers from falling into debt, with all the associated detrimental impacts that this can have on them. Publicise the importance of keeping up payments as a ‘priority debt’ and communicating the consequences of non-payment. We provide advice and support to customers’ transitioning to Universal Credit, provide support through the tenancy and employment support services for vulnerable households and those requiring additional support into training, volunteering or employment.
Changing customer profiles also inform the income management approach. The customer data tells us that we are housing:
Since the last Policy we have restructured the Customer Services Directorate. We have introduced a new housing management and rent account processing system, revised guidance to colleagues, aligned working practices to ensure consistency which are underpinned by our vision for service delivery and a new relationship with customers.
To support this vision we have:
Setting the scene for the payment culture starts as soon as we meet a prospective customer, and through the advice of colleagues throughout the customer journey. Setting clear expectations and ensuring these are understood by customers will help us develop the right behaviours and actions to support sustainable tenancies where regular rent payments are maintained.
We will ensure this through the following actions:
Providing the right information, advice and support to help customers maintain regular rent payments is central to our new approach to ensuring customers are clear on their responsibilities, and our expectations of them.
We will support and communicate with customers in the following ways:
We are committed to preventing evictions where customers demonstrate they are actively seeking to address their arrears and always consider this when considering enforcement action.
The collection of rent and arrears is a primary function of Neighbourhood Services Managers in Neighbourhoods. Property Managers in Plumlife and Housing and Contracts Officers in the Independence and Wellbeing Service. They are responsible for explaining rent and service charges to customers at property viewings, sign ups and when they take on leases. They are also responsible for notifying customers when they have fallen behind with payments, make repayment agreements for current arrears and agreements to reduce and clear balances for former tenancies. Neighbourhood Services Managers also refer cases for Court action which is approved by their line managers. They will also make applications to court when these have been approved.
Area Services Managers (Neighbourhoods) and Operations Managers (Plumlife) and the Business and Contracts Manager (I&W) are responsible for monitoring the performance of individual officers which is over seen by the Heads of Service. We will seek advice and support from the Housing and Enforcement Team.
The Directors of each service is responsible for the overall performance of the income collection. Only the General Needs Arrears figures forms the Critical Success Factor (CSF) for the business which is monitored by Board.
We will ensure in addition to robust use of management information to monitor accounts and performance, that we share best practice and continue to benchmark and learn from other providers from within and beyond the housing sector.
