Universal Credit is fuelling a mountain of debt which West Lothian Council will eventually have to write-off, a senior Labour councillor warned this week as it was revealed rent arrears in one ward had surged by more than £100,000 in a year.
And the pattern will be repeated across Scotland, a newly elected SNP councillor warned at the same meeting.
Whitburn and Blackburn Local Area Committee (LAC) heard that rent arrears had risen by £114,000 in the ward in the last year. The figure for the ward now stands at £700, 249.
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Roughly half of those on Universal Credit are in arrears.
n his report to the LAC Gary Stoddart, Housing Manager said: “The overall increased arrears in comparison to last year are as a result of Universal Credit being introduced in West Lothian from May 2018, along with other welfare benefit reforms and the current economic climate.
“In the same week last year Whitburn ward had 426 Universal Credit (UC) households in arrears. Since then the number of UC households in arrears has increased by 6%. The number of tenancies in arrears in this ward has increased by 54 since last year. Small debt cases (£300 or less), account for 49% of households.
“There are 208 serious arrears cases (+£1000 in arrears). These cases are 22% of all households in arrears in this area, containing 69% of the debt. The arrears position for Whitburn is £700,249. This is an increase of £114,564 on last year's position. “
The West Lothian overall position for the fourth quarter was £3,496,679.
Chairing the meeting Councillor George Paul said: “It's quite a substantial amount. UC is to the detriment of the councils. If it continues it is going to get worse and worse.
“At some point we are going to have to write off hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt which we are never going to be able to recover, which to my mind, is to the detriment of other tenants. Universal Credit is causing all sorts of problems. The increase of UC is maybe causing some of this £114,000 rise in rent arrears.”
Mary Dickson the newly elected SNP councillor said the problems would be widespread: “I wondered if there’s comparison with other councils for the rent arrears. I was surprised to see that arrears were £700,000. Writing some of that off would be awful?
Mr Stoddart said the council was a member of the Scottish Rent Forum and there was benchmarking with other authorities. He said that rent arrears had risen across the board in all councils in the last year and also for Registered Social Landlords on the back of the roll-out of Universal Credit but he added: “We are not as badly affected as some local authorities have been.”
