Reduction of 31 ALMOs in five years

Waltham Forest is the latest ALMO to look at bringing services back in-house

This follows two other London councils, Hackney and Lambeth, which have also recently announced plans to scrap their ALMOs.

The closures will bring the net reduction of ALMOs since 2010 to 31, leaving the National Federation of ALMOs with 39 members, down from 70 at the ALMO programme’s height in 2010.

‘Councils periodically review their ALMOs and, while some have gone back in-house, others have renewed their agreements,’ said Eamon McGoldrick, managing director of the National Federation of ALMOs.

‘The localism agenda means councils have more freedom so they’re reclaiming control and going back to a smaller, in-house way of operating,’ he added.

Mr McGoldrick said: ‘Councils either bring services back in-house to cut costs or, like in South Tyneside or Colchester, they extend the ALMO role to cover more, non-housing responsibilities because they have a track record on value for money and delivering savings.’

Despite the overall reduction in ALMOs, in recent years the housing sector has also seen a number of ALMO contracts renewed for up to 30 years. A number of new ALMOs have also formed, including Northampton Partnership Homes, Shropshire Towns and Rural Housing (STAR Housing), Welwyn Hatfield Community Housing Trust, East Kent Housing and Cornwall Housing.

The original ALMOs were set up by councils as a condition of receiving funding under the Labour government’s Decent Homes Programme in the late 2000s. Councils had the option of setting up an ALMO, stock transfer or private finance initiative (PFI) in order to access funding to bring stock up to a standard of decency.

‘ALMOs were originally set up with a very specific objective, but once homes had reached decent homes standards, some were wound up pretty sharpish and some have been given really quite long-term management agreements,’ Melanie Rees, head of policy at the Chartered Institute of Housing told Inside Housing.

Meanwhile, five stock transfers in March this year saw ALMOs Salix Homes (Salford), Gloucester City Homes, East Durham Homes, Durham City Homes and Dale & Valley Homes converted into housing associations in their own right. They followed Warrington, Stockton, Oldham and Bolton, where councils transferred stock between 2010/2011.