NEW figures show taxpayers are owed more than £5m in unpaid rent.
Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing (KNH) is more than £1m over its target for arrears.
A leading councillor has now accused the organisation of “incompetence” and called for its leaders to consider resigning over the debt.
KNH’s board discussed the arrears at a meeting this week.
The organisation, which manages 23,000 Kirklees Council-owned houses, is owed £5.08m – well above its target for the third quarter of the financial year 2011/12.
Current tenants have rent arrears of £1.72m – £340,000 above KNH’s target of £1.38m.
Former tenants owe £3.36m, £860,000 more than the target of £2.5m. KNH is about to write off £700,000 of the arrears.
Clr Christine Smith, a former member of the KNH Board, this week slammed the organisation for allowing tenants to run up such a huge debt.
“I can’t understand how they have let this get to that figure,” said the Kirkburton Conservative.
“Even a target of £3.9m is a high figure, but £5m in rent arrears is just another part of the incompetence of KNH.
“When I was on the board six or seven years ago there were arrears of £1m and it was a case of ‘shock, horror’.
“Since then KNH was supposed to have got its act together and put a system in place whereby it can spot people in arrears.”
Clr Smith believes KNH’s chairman and chief executive should consider resigning over the issue.
“Cora Carter and Simon Rogers should look at their positions,” she said.
Clr Smith also criticised the council’s Labour cabinet which awarded KNH a new five-year contract last year.
“The cabinet has given them another five years without any caveats to perform well and here we are again,’’ she said. “I think the council has got to take over.”
Clr Smith added that council tenants who fall behind with their rent should be treated the same as householders who don’t pay their council tax.
“As soon as you miss one month of your council tax, you get a letter. If you don’t pay after that, you get another letter saying you will be taken to court,” she said.
“After the third month, you’re in court. Why does that system not apply to council tenants?”
KNH’s board discussed the matter at Perseverance House on St Andrew’s Road on Tuesday.
A KNH spokeswoman said: “We have not hit our internal collection targets for rent this quarter and collecting rent is a lot harder during a recession and with the many changes that are happening to the welfare benefit system.
“However, we are on track to meet our end-of-year targets and up to now have collected 101% of current rents and arrears, which means we have also reduced arrears.
“This is a difficult time financially for many people and we are putting an emphasis on debt advice and welfare benefit take-up as well as having a firm but fair process to get rents in.
“We take a similar approach to former tenant arrears.
“We write off some, which is recommended accounting practice for unrecoverable debt, but we also actively pursue former tenants who owe rent so that the money can be claimed back.”
