Opposition councillors in Dundee have seized on new rent arrears figures which show that council tenants owe the local authority almost £1.5m.
The figure revealed this week at the scrutiny committee is almost 10% of the cash the council is expected to collect.
The national performance indicator was taken between April and December 2012. The council failed to collect 9.9% of rent in that period, compared to 8.6% in the same period in 2011.
Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors criticised the SNP administration but housing convener John Alexander said the statistics “do not present the complete picture”.
The councillor pointed to unpublished figures for the 12 months to March 2013, showing that arrears fell from £1.46m to £1.42m, a reduction of 0.1%
Councillor Kevin Keenan, who chairs the scrutiny committee which looked at the statistics, said: “The SNP delivered a 5% increase in rents, again way above inflation, refusing to accept the Labour amendment that would have delivered a lesser increase and employment opportunities for housing officers.
“I don’t expect that the SNP administration will revisit the Labour group’s proposals in its entirety; however they should consider the department’s need in dealing with the growing problem of rent arrears.
“It may have been useful to have accepted the Labour group’s proposals and had these council officers knocking doors and collecting rent.”
Mr Keenan said he was told the council is taking legal action against some tenants and, in a few cases, seeking eviction. The leader of Dundee’s Labour councillors is worried that changes to housing benefit could add to the problem.
The UK Government is reducing payments to people who are deemed to have spare rooms, a policy critics call the ‘bedroom tax’.
Mr Keenan said: “Welfare reform will continue to exacerbate the situation as household budgets are squeezed. The bedroom tax will bring a further squeeze on the household budgets.
“The SNP in Dundee say they have a ‘no eviction policy’ in relation to the bedroom tax but I would remind people to read the small print.
“The SNP should revisit their policy as it is likely to continue to burden those who pay their rent diligently as rent would likely continue to increase to cover non-collection.
“The administration cannot continue to burden those rent payers who pay at the expense of those who either can’t or won’t.”
Liberal Democrat councillor Fraser MacPherson, who sits on the scrutiny committee, said the figures are concerning, but are “the square root of nothing to do with welfare reform”.
“It is about the council’s performance on the SNP’s watch,” he added. “There is a real need for efficient action to ensure that the city council’s rent collection performance improves. I am not sure the SNP administration is really up to that task.”
Councillor John Alexander, convener of Dundee City Council’s housing committee, said there are “robust procedures” for collecting arrears.
“If our tenants have difficulties paying their rent, we strongly advise them to seek advice as soon as possible from the rent recovery centre.”
He added: “The figures that were reported to the scrutiny committee do not present the complete picture and if the full financial years of 2011/12 and 2012/13 are compared, what we see is an improvement in collecting rent arrears of 0.1%.”