Hillingdon joins Ealing in terminating arm’s-length management deal
Second ALMO contract ends
A second council in as many weeks has announced plans to end its contract with its arm’s-length management organisation.
Cabinet members at Hillingdon Council last week approved a move to take control of the 14,000 properties managed by Hillingdon Homes. The council will now consult tenants and leaseholders on whether to bring services back in-house after April 2010.
The news comes a week after Ealing Council said it would end its contract with Ealing Homes after March 2011. Poor relations have existed between the council and the ALMO since December 2008, when the Audit Commission downgraded Ealing Homes from two stars to one.
The future of ALMOs has been the subject of much debate over the past 18 months because many have now completed the decent homes programmes they were originally set up to carry out.
Neil Stubbings, deputy director of adult social care, health and housing at Hillingdon Council said: ‘[The ALMO] has improved housing in the borough and been successful in achieving the decent homes standard two years ahead of schedule. However, changes in flexibilities and freedoms promised for ALMOs have not materialised.’
Government plans to free councils from the existing housing subsidy system would give councils similar opportunities to ALMOs, he added.
Stockton Council decided this month to transfer stock from its ALMO to a housing association.
Philippa Roe, cabinet member for housing at Westminster Council, said it would keep its ALMO but that she did not ‘believe that the public sector provides the best sort of service’. She said it would change its managerial agreement with the ALMO in the next three years to make it more like a private company.
Rochdale Council announced this week that an independent commission had been set up to look at the future of its stock, which is managed by Rochdale Boroughwide Housing.
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