'Three In Four Universal Credit Tenants In Arrears'

Social housing representative bodies are calling on the government to review Universal Credit as new research finds more than three quarters of tenants are in rent arrears. The NFA and ARCH have published the findings of their latest survey of councils and ALMOs which found one year on from the rollout of Universal Credit across England 79% of around 3,000 tenants that are on UC are in rent arrears compared to 31% of other tenants.  The NFA and ARCH will call for the government to abandon the seven day waiting period for Universal Credit, review the in-arrears policy to see if this is causing “unnecessary hardship and long term disadvantage” for UC entitlement and speed up the UC assessment process to three weeks. Download the report from the NFA website.