CITY of York Council has come bottom of a regional league table, after failing to collect council house rents worth more than £1.15 million.

The study by the GMB union found that the authority did not collect 6.26 per cent of the rents due from council house tenants between April 1, 2003, and March 31, 2004.

Between those dates, York council collected 93.74 per cent of its rents, compared with 96.75 per cent in Selby and 98.06 per cent in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Third from bottom was Scarborough, with 4.8 per cent of the council house rents uncollected. Harrogate did best, collecting 99.17 per cent of its rent.

But Steve Waddington, the council's assistant director for housing, said that during 2004/05 the city had reduced current rent arrears by £307,039 to £844,216.

"In September 2004 we introduced new ways of working aimed at reducing the amount of money owed and, whilst in its infancy, this, combined with other initiatives, is starting to have a positive impact," he said.

"Whilst this (the reduced figure of £844,216) still leaves a large amount of rent arrears, we are working to reduce this amount and our aim is to be among the best in the country.

"Based on current performance we are on target to achieve this.

"Tenants report very high levels of satisfaction with the service that we provide and we have set a number of challenging targets - including reducing the amount of rent owed to the council - to ensure that we can continue to meet our customers aspirations in relation to the housing services."

Neil Derrick, GMB senior organiser, said: "Overall the performance of most councils in collecting council house rents is good.

"Some bad debts are inevitable. However, this study shows that it is essential that councils put robust systems in place to collect all outstanding council house rents and are vigorous in pursuit of those who owe rent money. In the cases of those who are low paid or on benefit, they need to put in place systems to pay housing benefit to the housing account.

"There is no scope to leave money uncollected.

"In most councils there is a backlog of repairs and maintenance that needs to be carried out and everybody has to pay their way."

Updated: 10:28 Wednesday, May 18, 2005