What might help housing associations decrease Universal Credit arrears?

Due to concerns amongst housing associations that Universal Credit was leading to higher rent arrears, we now conduct quarterly surveys to monitor housing association income collection. These surveys have allowed us to assess the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on tenants and their landlords and will also allow us to monitor the impact of the ongoing cost of living and energy crises. By collecting data on tenants paying with Universal Credit compared to other means (self-payers or housing benefit recipients), we hope to better understand how people are managing living costs and support members in campaigning for any improvements to the Universal Credit system.

Our intention from these surveys was to gather information from the same organisations to explore trends in the data. We recently conducted a review of repeat respondents’ data around arrears as a percentage of rent due for households paying with Universal Credit. We focussed on Universal Credit as, with the process of managed migration ongoing, it feels important to understand its continuing impact on tenants’ finances. Specifically, we wanted to understand which organisations had seen arrears reduce over the period June 2019 to March 2022 and ask them what they thought might have led to this change.

This short report presents the findings of this rapid review.