Communities and Local Government

• Housing
• Publications
• Reports and summaries
• Review of Arms Length Housing Management Organisations

Housing

---

Summary

This document was informed by the October 2004 Review process and sets out the Department's views on options for the management of council homes in local authorities with ALMOs after the Decent Homes programme has been completed. ALMOs currently have a fixed lifespan, limited to the length of the current agreement with their local authority. When this ends there are a range of possible ways forward, including:

• ALMOs carrying on as they are through extending the current agreement;
  
• ALMOs taking on a greater range of responsibilities on behalf of the council;
  
• ALMOs using trading powers to offer a range of services to other organisations;
  
• mergers or consortia arrangements between ALMOs;
  
• changing the management arrangements;
  
• integrating the ALMO with other local authority work, changing ownership arrangements.

The Department also wishes to secure clarity about when and how tenants and other service users should be consulted in respect of future management arrangements of the local authority stock currently managed by ALMOs. The Department expects any consultation on a significant change to the local authority's management arrangements with the ALMO to be as comprehensive as that undertaken before the setting up of the ALMO. The paper sets out a number of scenarios under which we would expect to see tenants consulted and a number where it may be considered good practice to consult.

This paper also addresses issues of operational capacity of ALMOs which were considered by the Review group including:

• applying for Anti-social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs);
  
• representing the authority in court on matters relating to tenants and leaseholders;
  
• consulting with leaseholders on behalf of the council;
  
• power in respect of a number of environmental issues;
  
• seeking exemption from requirements of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulation.

Order

Complete and submit the online form to order this publication.

• Order this publication

Download

• Review of Arms Length Housing Management Organisations
  PDF, 83 kb , 16 pages

Do you need help viewing file formats?

Alternative formats

If you require this publication in an alternative format (eg Braille or audio) please email alternativeformats@communities.gsi.gov.uk quoting the title and product code/ISBN of the publication, and your address and telephone number.