Council to take direct control of ALMO housing for first time

The London Borough of Hillingdon has confirmed that it is to be the first local authority in the country to return housing management to the council from its arms length management organisation (ALMO), Hillingdon Homes.

The decision, taken at the council’s cabinet meeting yesterday, followed the results of an independent opinion survey of residents which showed a large majority of residents were in favour of returning housing management to the council.

Hillingdon Homes was set up in 2003 to manage the council's tenancies. The council said that Hillingdon Homes had delivered good service performance and achieved high tenant satisfaction and had secured the Decent Homes standard with £60m funding from Government. However, with this programme now complete, Hillingdon Council said that returning housing to direct control would save support service and governance costs, enabling it to improve services for tenants. Hillingdon Homes staff will move to the council and retain their current terms and conditions.

Cllr Philip Corthorne, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, Health and Housing, said: "Hillingdon Homes has done a good job of managing the council's tenancies but we have had to look at how we continue to provide good quality, efficient services for residents. Changes in flexibilities and freedoms promised by the Government for ALMOs have not materialised but freedoms around borrowing and new build have been extended to local authorities.

"We have had to deal with the impact of the economic recession and severely restricted budgets means we cannot justify running a separate company to manage housing when we could do it in-house. This proposal will mean we could cut duplicated costs and instead use the money to improve housing services."