A report by the Assembly's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has criticised the management of social housing in Northern Ireland, pointing to deficiencies in the organization.

The Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) and housing associations are owed £21m in rent arrears.

According to Chairman Paul Maskey, this failure to collect money represented "serious implications" for social housing, especially in times of economic crisis.

The debt prevents the NIHE from providing essential services, such as the maintaining of the tenants' properties, he claimed.

He noted that the key to controlling arrears is preventing them from occurring in the first place, and Mr Maskey stated that the NIHE had been very slow to introduce measures designed to maximise their rental income.

The report underlined that the NIHE had arrears of £14 million and that the associations accounted for another £7 million.

"A direct debit facility will not be in place for rent payments until 2010," he added.

In addition, the committee members found that only one of the Executive's 73 corporate targets was in relation to rent arrears.

The Stormont 'watchdog' stated this target required that the overall level of arrears "did not deteriorate year-on-year" and meeting it in the five years up to March 2007 had only been possible because the Housing Executive wrote off £10.6 million of rental debt.

The chairman said that all theses revealed deficiencies and underlined the need for more comprehensive performance reporting and a more 'stretching' set of corporate targets.

He pointed out that, until recently, the Department for Social Development's oversight of housing associations had been weak, although it had improved its regulatory activities.

However, "it must do more to share information and to identify and promote best practice developments across the whole social housing sector".

(CL/BMcC)