Rugby council hopes to recover more than £800k in rent arrears with new software

And council bosses hope the introduction of the system - which uses complex algorithms to predict which tenants will struggle to pay - will make debt recovery more efficient, meaning officers will become more efficient.

Councillors at this week’s July 7 cabinet meeting agreed to enter a two-year contract for the RentSense software at a cost of £83,850.

Other options were to do nothing and risk adding to the debt due to inefficiencies and the unmanageable workload or to employ at least four new members of staff which would cost upwards of £150,000.

A report from the council’s head of communities explained: “A fit for purpose arrears monitoring system is fundamental to reducing rent arrears, increasing collection rates, creating capacity to support our most complex and vulnerable tenants, sustaining tenancies, and preventing homelessness.

“The introduction of RentSense will add efficiencies to the current debt recovery process, reduce caseloads, meaning that officers will be able to complete arrears caseloads each week, contact the right tenants at the right time, address those accounts in arrears and reduce debt owed to the council.”

Councillors were told that two officers currently worked full-time on rent arrears cases. Their typical caseload was more than 650 each week compared to the national average of 184 and those numbers were likely to increase with the rollout of Universal Credit.

Overall rent arrears at the end of the 2019/20 financial year stood at £833,957 with 40 per cent owed by former tenants and a similar amount from current council house arrears.

The report added: “The current debt recovery process is inefficient, officers have unmanageable workloads which prevents them from providing early intervention and to support those tenants at greatest risk of falling into arrears.

“It is expected that rent collection is due to increase by 16 per cent (£2.7m) by 2022 which will add extra work to already unsustainable caseloads. This is without the additional pressures being brought about because of coronavirus and the impact it is having on landlords at a local and national level.”

Councillors agreed to fund the two-year contract to use the RentSense software after hearing that it was already used by more than 150 clients around the country including North Warwickshire Borough Council.