Practical Ideas for Working in Partnership with Local Agencies

September 2013

Your Homes Newcastle

• Arms Length Management Organisation wholly owned by Newcastle City Council

• Set up to manage the council housing stock in Newcastle• Manage over 29,000 properties• Originally set up to bring all the council properties up to the decent

homes standard by investing over £360m of improvements• Deliver a whole range of services to both council tenants and other

residents living in Newcastle

Your Homes Newcastle

• 70% of our tenants are Housing Benefit dependent• Areas of high deprivation• Low levels of financial literacy• 30% of our tenants are in employment• Use of doorstep lending is common place• Use of payday lending is becoming increasingly common place

Advice and Support Team

•Provide housing related support to residents in Newcastle

•Help people to set up and sustain their tenancies

•Help them furnish their properties

•Provide benefit and budgeting advice

•Provide debt advice

•Refer people into services who can offer employability advice

How the use of high interest lenders has affected our customers

• The use of doorstep credit is often intergenerational• Will have personal relationships with the doorstep lender

(neighbour/family friend)• Start of school and Christmas are peak times for borrowing• Often starting to get into difficulties managing their priorities

debts such as rent and council tax• May have ignored the problem and rent arrears have

escalated to the point where their tenancies are at risk• Pay to who shouts the loudest

Positive Examples of Working in Partnership with Credit Unions

• Incentive schemes to encourage people to join the Credit Union (save a tenner scheme)• Joint working into schools including working with the illegal money lending team to set up a weekly savings scheme• Helping new tenants to join the Credit Union• Own Your Own - cheaper alternative to weekly payment stores such as

Brighthouse

Working to improve Financial Literacy

• Taking up work can be positive but can cause financial pressures• Every tenant takes up an apprentice must have a financial assessment• Income and Expenditure check• Maximise benefit take up• Return furniture package and look for cheaper alternatives which may

include borrowing from the CU to replace items of furniture• Borrowing from the Credit Union to buy an annual travel pass which

works out cheaper• Has improved the rate of completion of apprenticeships

Ways to work with the Credit Union

• Expect to pay to support the Credit Unions, this will not be free•Consider setting up a collections facility in your locality so the Credit Union can build up a presence on your high street•A small amount of capital can enable CU’s to extend their lending criteria to lend to riskier customers•Providing support to enable CU’s to work with private landlords to receive rent payments can stop people from being evicted and having properties standing empty.•Things of way to support the Credit Union that will spread their customer base such as payroll deduction schemes.