A new service from the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) will offer specialist support to social landlords to help them overcome the economic challenges to their organisation and their tenants.

As changes to housing benefit take effect and tenants find their finances squeezed, over three quarters (78 per cent) of social landlords say they are worried about increasing rent arrears.

CIH will provide expertise for landlords on how to maximise their income collection and at the same time improve their tenants’ money management skills and general wellbeing.

-- Advertisement --

The Income and Inclusion Service will include: income management health checks and service reviews; in-house training; facilitating of strategic partnerships with commercial and charitable organisations and providing executive briefings.

Paul O’Connor, who is heading up the new Income and Inclusion Service at CIH, said: "The aim of this new service is to offer bespoke support to housing providers to ensure that their income management policies and procedures are able to cope with the many challenges going forward. Improving tenants' financial capability and offering early intervention initiatives in arrears prevention are as important as ever given the recently announced welfare reforms and cuts to publicly funded advice services."

The new service builds on the success of CIH’s financial inclusion advisor programme, which over two years helped 250 housing organisations to help their tenants make better financial decisions.

(GK)