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From the archive – ALMOs set for £2.5bn windfall
Inside Housing finds out what was making news in the sector five, 15 and 25 years ago this week
25 years ago
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) abandoned plans to set up a housing trust. Instead, it announced that a management organisation would take over service married quarters.
The move raised questions over the future of Mike Robinson, who had already been appointed to lead the trust. His £100,000-a-year salary was believed to make him the highest-paid housing director in the country.
Although privatisation was still on the cards for the married quarters, alternative approaches to the trust were being explored. In the meantime, a management organisation known as the Married Quarters Estate was set up. Defence secretary Malcolm Rifkind had previously pledged that the quarters would be in private hands by 1995.
Mr Robinson was “continuing to advise on ways of improving housing management,” according to the MoD.
15 years ago
The government agreed a £2.5bn three-year spending settlement with ALMOs in the latest Spending Round. The figure far outstripped the previous Spending Round’s £1.9bn allocation for ALMOs.
Round-four ALMOs were set to receive £453m between them from 2005 to 2007, while round-two ALMOs would receive £450m. The rest of the money had not yet been allocated by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM).
The ODPM also confirmed that it would be seeking bids for a fifth round of ALMOs by the end of January 2005, with a sixth round expected towards the end of 2006.
Gwyneth Taylor, policy officer at the National Federation of ALMOs, said it was “delighted” with the settlement.
She added that the unallocated cash was a “healthy chunk of money” with which to begin funding rounds five and six, as well as to cover initial allocations for round three.
She said the message from government was that “ALMOs are proving their worth… delivering not only on decent homes but also improved services and tenant empowerment”.
Picture: Getty
Five years ago
The government was preparing to offer housing associations a higher grant rate per home should funding levels prevent them from building affordable homes.
The proposal was seen by some as recognition that the grant rate at the time – around £23,000 per unit on average – was too low to allow some organisations to develop.
The suggestion that it would be increased came from Liberal Democrat communities minister Stephen Williams. “Ministers have to face reality sometimes and if the reality is the programme cannot be delivered as designed, then we need to have a rethink,” he said.
At the time, the 2015/18 Affordable Homes Programme was underbid, with £1.3bn of £3bn total funding unallocated.
