Quarter of ALMOs see contracts renewed

Almost a quarter of housing arm’s-length management organisations have now had their contracts renewed by their parent council, despite having completed their initial work.

The National Federation of ALMOs said 15 of the organisations had had their contracts extended and so will continue to manage housing stock on behalf of their parent council.

Of the remainder, 31 are being reviewed or soon will be, five have been closed and folded back into their council’s housing department and in four cases the stock concerned has been transferred to a housing association.

ALMOs were devised by the Labour government in 2000 in response to criticism that funds to deliver the decent homes standard had in effect been tied to a ‘yes’ vote by tenant for transfer to a registered social landlord.

ALMOs had to secure a two star inspection rating to access additional funds to deliver the standard and then worked under contracts to councils to complete decent homes work.

Their future has been in question since the majority finished their work towards the standard.

Federation chair Alison Inman said: “Although some organisations have decided to dissolve their ALMOs, we have always been confident that the vast majority will have their management agreements extended and the evidence so far supports this view.

“ALMOs have proved popular with tenants, provide many more opportunities for tenant involvement and have delivered a number of efficiency savings and improvements which have been fully recognised by their parent councils.”

The federation is due to publish a report into potential community ownership of council housing in the next few weeks.

It said this would develop proposals for deeper tenant involvement in running ALMOs than is currently allowed.

Mark Smulian