Council House Rents To Increase By 3% In Highland From April 2020
23rd January 2020
Highland councillors will be asked a the meeting on 29th January 2020 of the newly created Housing and Property committee to agree to increase council house rents by 3% for 2021. This would result in an increase in the average weekly council house rent from £75.38 to £77.64 (£2.26 per week).
Consultation on proposed rent increases for 2020/2021 ran from 28 October 2019 until 16 December 2019. The initial consultation phase involved 13,996 Highland Council tenants receiving a consultation leaflet through the post.
For tenants who wanted to discuss the consultation in more detail, the Tenant Participation Team visited 90 communities across Highland and carried out face-to-face consultations with more than 900 tenants. In addition to this, telephone consultations were carried out with a further 20 communities and Rent Setting workshops were held with Tenant Forums and Tenant Groups in Brora, Inverness, Lochaber and Kinlochbervie.
The consultation was also available to complete online with links on the Council website and promotions on social media platforms.
Overall the response rate was 1,406 (10%). This is a significant increase in the responses to consultation in previous years. For example last year the response rate was 3.8%. This is largely due to the changes to consultation methods developed and delivered by the Tenant Participation Team working closely with tenant representatives across Highland.
The option of a 3% rent increase was the preferred option of 49.9% of tenants who replied; 34.2% favoured the 2.5% rent increase option; and 15.9% of tenants favoured the 3.5% option.
Universal credit is impacting on rent arrears with significant increases.
At the end of November 2019 there were 2,629 known Universal Credit claimants in mainstream Highland Council housing. Of these, 2,014 (76%) are in arrears with an average arrears value of £716 per household. Tenants currently in receipt of Universal Credit have average rent arrears that are nearly 4 times higher than tenants in receipt of full or partial Housing Benefit.
There continue to be gradual improvements in the administration of Universal Credit cases and the average value of arrears per known Universal Credit claimant in mainstream housing is reducing , however average arrears are still significantly higher than for other tenants, and the number of tenants claiming Universal Credit is increasing.
The full report is at Item 4 of the agenda can be read HERE
Related Businesses
Related Articles
As intimated in Highland Council's budget plan, a new senior management structure is to be implemented following approval by Council 14th March. It reconfigures the senior management team into two layers, rather than three and brings Highland Council into line with other benchmarked authorities.
Today, Morrison Construction introduced some of their local apprentices who are working on the UK Governments' Levelling Up Funded refurbishment project at the Northern Meeting Park in Inverness. All these apprentices have been recruited from the Highland area.
The by-election to elect a councillor to represent Ward 19 - Inverness South on The Highland Council has been won by Duncan Cameron McDonald - Independent who was one of the eight candidates who contested the vacancy. Voters in the ward went to the poll yesterday (Thursday 11 April) and the by-election count was held this morning in The Highland Council Headquarters in Inverness.
The Technology Placement Programme offers funding to businesses in the Highland Council area to cover up to 70% of the cost of employing a student or graduate. The Technology Placement Programme offers funding to businesses in the Highland Council area to cover up to 70% of the cost of employing a student or graduate.
Following the success of its Business Digital Grant scheme launched last year, The Highland Council is delighted to announce further funding. This is to help Highland companies access digital support alongside other business growth support.
The Highland Council is delighted to confirm a highly successful second year for Public Service Obligation (PSO) flights between Wick and Aberdeen. The period from April 2023 to March 2024 has seen a substantial increase in passenger numbers, with several months seeing over 1,000 passengers using the service, and overall the service has seen year on year growth of 25%.
Members of Highland Council, who met on Thursday 14 March 2024, approved a corporate Digital Ambition, which has been designed to deliver significant organisational change across Council services, recognising the current priorities within the organisation. The Strategy, which is embedded within the wider Council Delivery Plan, has been developed to focus attention and resources on areas of change which will deliver the greatest benefit to the Council.
The Council remains committed to supporting mentoring in our schools, including the support that is currently delivered through the MCR Pathways programme. Highland Council is currently undertaking a review of Employability Support provided by a number of different council services and how these relate to the work carried out by external partners and in our schools.
Highland Council members have considered and agreed a revised draft Highland Outcome Improvement Plan. The partnership plan has been reviewed and updated by the Community Planning Partnership.
Members at today's (14 March 2024) meeting of The Highland Council agreed the local authority's new draft Community Wealth Building Strategy. They were also asked to note that a period of public engagement on the draft will now begin, with a final strategy returning to full Council for consideration in September.
