Vale of Aylesbury Housing Trust has completed the implementation of Mobysoft’s RentSense arrears software, resulting in an almost-immediate cut of £65,000 in arrears and a substantial reduction in its income officers’ caseloads.
Before the implementation of RentSense, the housing provider was generating a weekly yet often incorrect report from its housing management system, leading to wasted time by income officers.
Liz Prankard, income manager, Vale of Aylesbury Housing Trust, said, “When we go ‘full-service’ later this year, we know that arrears will increase, whereas last year they had plateaued. To work more efficiently and combat the threat of rising arrears we had to do something different, and that was why we started looking at RentSense.
“By working on cases now when arrears are at their minimum means that we can try and help keep the tenants out of debt, and take a more supportive role. Being proactive minimises the levels of debt, rather than focusing on them when arrears are out of control.”
Having implemented RentSense, VAHT was surprised by how quickly arrears were reduced. Prankard said, “We wanted arrears as low as possible before full-service UC takes effect. Within one month not only had our officers’ caseload been cut dramatically, but this also enabled the team to lower arrears by £65,000. We were expecting to see the workload reduce, but not necessarily the arrears so quickly as well.
“The team is now getting through 100 per cent of their cases every week, whereas before RentSense this was unheard of. Furthermore, the income officers have said that they now have greater job satisfaction because they know they’re not wasting time and can actually see the results of their work.”
RentSense’s predictive algorithms are also helping flag cases at their earliest stages, and even before tenants fall into arrears. Prankard said, “The software flags up when housing benefit payments are missing or reduced so we see these before they become arrears cases, whereas before it might have been four or five weeks before this was noticed.”
