RENT arrears at council houses in Flintshire are no longer increasing, a senior councillor has said.

Flintshire Council's cabinet will meet on Tuesday to discuss the latest financial position for rent arrears in 2019-20.

According to the council the latest position shows that, by implementing new technology in July 2019 designed to track and monitor rent arrears more quickly and provide earlier interventions, rent collection is "continuing to stabilise" and rent arrears are starting to fall.

A council spokesman explained: "This is despite the ongoing challenges of increasing numbers of tenants moving to Universal Credit (UC).

"The latest collection position shows that by offering additional and timely help and support to tenants, collection of rent is continuing to stabilise with total rent arrears reducing to £2.04m compared £2.18m at the same point in 2018/19.

"The last three years of UC full service rollout have been extremely challenging for the rent income service. The housing service has worked hard to challenge the inevitable impacts that most social landlords experience with rising rent arrears."

Councillor Dave Hughes, Flintshire Council’s cabinet member for housing, added: “The rent income service has worked incredibly hard.

"The latest collection position shows rent arrears have stabilised and no longer increasing as they have done in previous years since the introduction of UC full service.

“The housing team has introduced specialist housing software which can identify those tenants who are more at risk of falling into arrears.

"This technology is helping us identify risk cases, increase collections and reduce bad debts.

"We are able to intervene much sooner, leading to smaller amounts of arrears and the opportunity to work with tenants quickly to get back on track with their rent.”

This ‘Rent Sense’ software solution provides positive outcomes for tenants who are able to have sustainable tenancies.