Common Credit score is fuelling a mountain of debt which West Lothian Council will finally need to write-off, a senior Labour councillor warned this week because it was revealed lease arrears in a single ward had surged by greater than £100,000 in a 12 months.
And the sample will likely be repeated throughout Scotland, a newly elected SNP councillor warned on the similar assembly.
Whitburn and Blackburn Native Space Committee (LAC) heard that lease arrears had risen by £114,000 within the ward within the final 12 months. The determine for the ward now stands at £700, 249.
Roughly half of these on Common Credit score are in arrears.
n his report back to the LAC Gary Stoddart, Housing Supervisor stated: “The general elevated arrears compared to final 12 months are on account of Common Credit score being launched in West Lothian from Could 2018, together with different welfare profit reforms and the present financial local weather.
“In the identical week final 12 months Whitburn ward had 426 Common Credit score (UC) households in arrears. Since then the variety of UC households in arrears has elevated by 6 per cent. The variety of tenancies in arrears on this ward has elevated by 54 since final 12 months. Small debt instances ( £300 or much less), account for 49 per cent of households.
“There are 208 critical arrears instances (+£1000 in arrears). These instances are 22 per cent of all households in arrears on this space, containing 69 per cent of the debt. The arrears place for Whitburn is £700,249. This is a rise of £114,564 on final 12 months’s place.”
The West Lothian total place for the fourth quarter was £3,496,679.
Chairing the assembly Councillor George Paul stated: “It’s fairly a considerable quantity. UC is to the detriment of the councils. If it continues it's going to worsen and worse.
“Sooner or later we're going to have to write down off a whole bunch of 1000's of kilos in debt which we're by no means going to have the ability to get better, which to my thoughts, is to the detriment of different tenants. Common Credit score is inflicting all types of issues. The rise of UC is perhaps inflicting a few of this £114,000 rise in lease arrears.”
Mary Dickson the newly elected SNP councillor stated the issues can be widespread: “I questioned if there’s comparability with different councils for the lease arrears. I used to be shocked to see that arrears had been £700,000. Writing a few of that off can be terrible?
Mr Stoddart stated the council was a member of the Scottish Lease Discussion board and there was benchmarking with different authorities. He stated that lease arrears had risen throughout the board in all councils within the final 12 months and likewise for Registered Social Landlords on the again of the roll-out of Common Credit score however he added: “We're not as badly affected as some native authorities have been.”
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