Background information about East
Kent Housing
In 2005, the four councils from Dover,
Canterbury, Shepway and Thanet each carried out an appraisal of the
long term viability of its council housing.
While all four authorities
could achieve and sustain the Decent Homes standard and had viable
business plans, concerns remained that the relatively small stock
holding of each authority would limit any ambitions to improve
services and to improve opportunities for our council tenants and
leaseholders.
In 2008, opportunities for
joint working between the four housing services were explored and
in 2010 a detailed business case for a shared housing management
service was approved by the local councils.
At the same time it was
agreed that the ALMO model provided the most appropriate vehicle
and governance structure to base a shared housing service and,
following extensive consultation with our tenants and leaseholders
in the summer of 2010, support for this proposal was submitted
for government approval and a was made in early 2011.
The ALMO, which has been
named “East Kent Housing”, is now responsible for the
management and maintenance of the 18,000 homes owned by the four
councils.
What is an ALMO and how will the East Kent Housing ALMO
work?
An arm’s length management
organisation (ALMO) is a not for profit company set up by a local
authority to manage its housing stock.
When an ALMO is established,
the housing stock remains in the ownership of the local authority
but the ALMO takes responsibility for its day-to-day housing
services management.
The East Kent Housing ALMO
will be owned by the four councils of Dover, Canterbury, Shepway
and Thanet and managed by a board, which includes four tenants
and/or leaseholders, four local authority nominees representing
each council area and four independent members.
The ALMO will only look
after the council housing services as the councils will keep
responsibility for all strategic housing functions such as, housing
strategy and enabling, homelessness, and housing advice, the
management of the housing register including Choice Based Lettings,
private sector housing and the management of the Housing Revenue
Account.
Background information about ALMOs
The ALMO programme started
in 2001 and six bidding rounds have taken place for local
authorities seeking to join the programme. There are around 68
ALMOs in the UK, which manage more than one million council homes
across 64 local authorities.
ALMOs have demonstrated that
they offer a better service to tenants than any other form of
council housing management – ALMOs achieved higher inspection
ratings than local authority managed housing or housing
associations.