Former welfare minister Lord Freud has said around one in four low-income tenants on Universal Credit are falling into rent arrears.
Inside Housing reported on Lord Freuds attendance at the Work and Pensions Committee to discuss his legacy in implementing the plan for Universal Credit, Lord Freud said that he had seen figures indicating a quarter of people on the system were in rental arrears, amid difficulties implementing the policy.
This is some of their analysis:
“The figure is far lower than the 86% quoted by the National Federation of Arm’s-Length Management Organisations (NFA) and the Association of Retained Council Housing (ARCH) last month
The former minister, who retired from the government in December, dismissed these claims but did admit “real concern” to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) about the figures.
He said: “When I left I was looking at figures which showed there was a problem – a proportion of people, probably around a quarter, where Universal Credit was having an effect on the arrears. The department is obviously really concerned to sort that.
“The issue is how long does it take to work out what the right rent is to make those payments; there’s an element about getting the right data and the speed of processing and they need to and are working on speeding up, and with accuracy of data.” “