Mobysoft’s Rentsense software is being used by Equity Housing Group to reduce its arrears caseload from 1,000 cases per week to just 250.
Before the introduction of Rentsense, Equity Housing took a list-based approach to arrears because its housing management system was ineffective for making recommendations about which arrears case should be investigated.
Jonathan Brownbill, financial inclusion manager, Equity Housing Group, said, “Housing management systems tend to focus on a ‘staircase’ escalation approach which can be easily upset by complexities. Feedback from our housing officers highlighted that they were spending a lot of time checking cases that needed no action and that process took two to three minutes per record.”
Equity was also aware that ongoing welfare reform and the advent of universal credit would greatly impact officers’ workloads and the time taken to manage their caseloads.
Brownbill said, “We needed Rentsense to help free up capacity, enabling our officers to spend more time with tenants who need them, focusing on both support and enforcement where appropriate.”
As well as the large reduction in arrears cases each week, Equity Housing’s overall arrears have fallen from 1.2 per cent (2014/15) to 0.8 per cent (2015/16).
Brownbill said, “As an income team, you simply want to know who is in arrears, and then who is getting worse and by how much. Traditional housing management systems are not effective at doing this, but Rentsense is. Its interface is simple to use, you can select and design your own priorities and bandings, and it supports agile working.
“We have found that Rentsense instils an officer culture around caseload completion which really works and brings the team together around a collective aim.”
