COUNCIL tenants are to be targeted in a cross-party crackdown on Hyndburn's rent debt problem.

The authority was recently named in a Government league of shame highlighting councils with the worst debt collection rates.

Hyndburn was the worst performer in East Lancashire, finishing 43rd on the list of 299 councils across England.

The authority is currently owed more than £595,000 from its tenants, according to the latest quarterly figures released in December.

But council bosses have defended the figure and a special working group is set to tackle the problem.

Council leader George Slynn called for nominations for a team of eight Labour and Conservative members who will discuss the issue.

At a meeting of the policy and resources committee, he said: "This is an urgent issue and we need to work together to look at options to make inroads into the arrears." After the meeting, deputy director of regeneration Ken Bury said: "There are many problems in areas of deprivation such as this.

"Some people have no excuse for being behind with payments, but others have a lot of forms to fill in and people have to wait for the DSS to get back to them.

"The figures are also distorted by court costs for individual cases, but we hope to solve that problem with new computer software.

"A big issue is the number of people who move houses without giving four weeks' notice, which they are then charged for but never pay.

"That makes up more than half the total arrears, but we can only chase these people so hard.

"We are hoping to drive the total down and the group will discuss an action plan for the whole issue of rent collection.

"One idea is to make sure people move into houses they will want to stay in."

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