A new report has revealed that local authorities in the West Midlands are owed £3.8 million in rental arrears from the last five years.

Anslysis by Access PaySuite, a public sector payments specialist, highlights a considerable financial burden on the region's councils.

The Rental Arrears Index was created by submitting Freedom of Information requests to the authorities.

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The findings show that those providing social housing are owed on average £3.1 million per authority in rental arrears.

The West Midlands has the fourth highest level of rental arrears based on the local authorities that responded.

London tops the list very comfortably, owing an average of £10.1 million each in arrears.

Yorkshire and the Humber, and North East England surpass the West Midlands, with the average owed at £4.8 million and £3.9 million respectively.

Scotland rounds off the top five.

The regions with the least amounts of arrears are South East England, and the East of England, with less than £1 million owed per authority.

Commenting on the findings, Alex Common, divisional director of product and engineering at Access PaySuite, said: "Social housing budgets have been squeezed significantly over recent years.

"On top of this, the cost of living crisis has caused real difficulties for many people to meet their living costs, whether they rent their property from their local authority, a housing association or a private landlord.

"If we apply our representative sample across the 221 local authorities which own social housing, the total value of rental arrears across local government could be as high as £650 million."

He added: "For local authorities and housing associations in the West Midlands, this creates a challenging balancing act between affordability for tenants, while meeting costs for their own essential expenditure requirements.

“Finding a long-term solution to the challenge of rising arrears is a complex challenge.

"However, in the meantime, there are important steps that local authorities can put in place to support their tenants and make rent collections as simple as possible."

The full findings can be found at accesspaysuite.com/rental-arrears-index-2024.