§ Sir Irvine PatnickTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the arrears from (i) rents and (ii) other income currently outstanding to each local authority; what incentives are used to encourage local authorities to reduce these debts; and if he will make a statement. [4903]
§ Sir Paul Beresford:Information on local authority rent arrears is collected from authorities on their housing subsidy claim form returns. A ranked listing of authorities' cumulative arrears as a percentage of rent roll is released each year in a DOE news release. Copies of the DOE news release, the latest of which provides statistics on the position at the end of March 1995 and was released on 12 January 1996, are in the Library of the House.
Other arrears relate primarily to uncollected community charges and council taxes, but may also result from a range of other sources such as outstanding insurance claims, trading activities, mortgage arrears and so on. Information on uncollected community charge and council tax for each local authority is not available centrally. However, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy regularly publishes estimates for individual authorities: figures for 31 March 1995 are available in its "Revenue Collection Statistics 1994–95" publication, a copy of which is in the Library of the House. No information is available centrally on any other forms of arrears.
The Government expect local authorities to pursue all arrears of rent, community charge and council tax and so on that are collectable. It is in the interests of authorities to do so to restrict their level of borrowing and council tax bills overall. Authorities have a range of powers enabling them to enforce recovery of rent arrears, community charge and council tax arrears. They use these powers at their discretion and my Department has provided general guidance through practice notes and other advice. For example, in October 1994, a research report, "Rent Arrears in Local Authorities and Housing Associations" was issued by the Government to all local authorities; this contains good practice advice on preventing and managing rent arrears.
The Government have introduced a range of measures to encourage authorities to maximise revenue collection, for example the ring-fencing of housing revenue accounts, penalising poor performers in the distribution of housing investment programme allocations and requiring publication of rent arrears information under the citizen's charter performance indicator regime set up by the Audit Commission.