East Suffolk Council Reduces Arrears with RentSense

East Suffolk Council Reduce Arrears by £250,000 with RentSense

Since using RentSense, from February 2019, East Suffolk Council has reduced their arrears by over £250,000 as of January 2021, despite the covid pandemic.

East Suffolk invested in RentSense with clear expectations what the software would deliver in terms of efficiencies and savings, the impact of which was immediate. Prior to using RentSense arrears were increasing and team morale was low as officers were being presented with an inaccurate and long workload.

“Straight away, with RentSense, the team could get through their caseload. In turn that has reduced our arrears and importantly it has improved our team morale. We have the reporting suite as well and we give officers access to that so they can see how they are performing, and we get detailed insight.” Explains Samantha Shimmon, Tenant Services Manager at East Suffolk Council.

The team at East Suffolk have found that RentSense flags cases sooner and helps them intervene at the earliest stages, even before arrears have been accrued, as Samantha highlights:

“The team love the early intervention cases, where accounts are in credit but Housing Benefit has stopped or been reduced, for example. They are able to be proactive and prevent the tenants falling into arrears and get remedies in before it’s too late and the arrears become unmanageable.”

Early Intervention

And so, what has the impact of RentSense been over the last two years, especially as the Covid pandemic has impacted many landlords and tenants. Below Samantha explains the council’s performance.

RentSense has been instrumental in improving our performance, we have seen a consistent arrears reduction, and they have fallen by £250,000, which is a quarter of our arrears profile is, even when we have experienced a year of a pandemic as well. We have also seen fewer court actions and evictions, as RentSense gives us the ability to contact tenants sooner preventing arrears.”
Samantha Shimmon, East Suffolk Council

“The management and team at East Suffolk Council have done an amazing job. They have reduced their arrears, even in a global pandemic. More importantly they have been able to offer support to those tenants that need it and prevent many from falling into debt in the first instance.” Commented Paul Evans, Director at Mobysoft.