You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Closure of troubled ALMO brought forward by six months
Four councils will shut down their troubled ALMO six months earlier than previously planned.
East Kent Housing (EKH), which currently manages a combined 17,000 homes on behalf of Canterbury, Dover, Thanet and Folkestone & Hythe councils, is now set to close on 30 September.
Staff and services will be transferred to the four parent councils on that date, having initially been expected not to move over until 1 April 2021.
Councillors at the four local authorities agreed in February to scrap EKH and take back responsibility for managing their respective housing stocks.
Major health and safety issues emerged at EKH last summer, and in September the four councils were issued notice that they had breached the Regulator of Social Housing’s Home Standard through the failings.
READ MORE
The councils dismissed EKH’s board members and put their chief executives in control of the organisation in December after a report concluded it to be “fundamentally broken”.
An interim chief executive, Vivien Knibbs, was appointed in January following the departure of previous incumbent Deborah Upton.
The authorities have stated their intention to retain as many EKH staff as possible for the new in-house services, and Inside Housing understands it is hoped the early closure will help in this aim.
In a statement, the four councils’ chief executives Colin Carmichael, Nadeem Aziz, Madeline Homer and Susan Priest said: “We have been determined to ensure the transfer of staff and services from EKH back to the councils happens as quickly as humanly possible in the interest of tenants and to end the uncertainty for EKH staff who are doing an incredible job in very trying circumstances.
“Council officers and senior managers at EKH have been working hard in the background to put all of the arrangements in place and we are now in a position to proceed at pace.
“A determination to retain EKH staff, minimise redundancies and work closely with all staff has always been at the heart of the process.
“There will be more jobs available across the four councils than people currently employed by EKH.
“We also hope many of the agency staff who have been vital in supporting the organisation during this period of fundamental change will want to go and work for one of the four councils when the services transfer and we will be working with them to make that happen.”
EKH was established in 2011 and is the only ALMO that manages homes on behalf of multiple councils.
Sign up for our Council Focus newsletter
Already have an account? Click here to manage your newsletters
