NFA Urges Government Not To Renege On 'Decent Homes' Promises

Published by JenCooke for National Federation of ALMOs in Housing and also in Central Government

Organisation criticises move to switch funding to support New Build programme

The organisation whose members manage more than half of the country’s council houses and deliver a multi-billion pound home improvement programme today criticised Government plans to cut back on its funding to support a new house building initiative.
 

Alison Inman, the newly-elected Chair of The National Federation of ALMOs (NFA), whose 69 member organisations manage more than 1 million council homes, urged Ministers to honour promises to tens of thousands of tenants living in homes in line to be brought up to the Government’s Decent Homes standard.

Responding to today’s announcement by Housing Minister John Healey, she said:

“We all recognise the desperate need in this country for new affordable social housing – and indeed many of our members want the right to build new homes - but we believe the Government is making a serious error of judgement here even though we all appreciate the difficult economic times in which we are living.

“Given there will shortly be 5 million people on council waiting lists, it is essential that we continue to maintain and improve existing stock as new build alone will never satisfy the need. Funding this latest initiative partly by reducing money previously allocated to the Decent Homes programme is not the right solution.”

The first ALMOs (Arms Length Management Organisations) were created in 2002 in a model that put genuine decision making powers in the hands of tenants. Since then the movement has brought more than 220,000 homes across England up to the Decent Homes standard and achieved widespread, Cross-Party support.

The organisations are inspected by the Audit Commission and have to achieve a minimum of two stars, in a three star rating system, to access hundreds of millions of pounds of additional funding.

ALMOs have a remarkable record of improving services and involving tenants in key decision making and by June 2009, 31 ALMOs had achieved the Audit Commission’s two-star rating while a further 21 have been awarded the maximum three-star rating; a track record unsurpassed by the housing association or traditional local authority sectors.

In his announcement of a £1.7 million cash boost for 9 local authorities in some of the most deprived areas of the country to build 11,200 new homes, the Minister said that this would be provided by reallocation of funds from other capital spending programmes including the Decent Homes scheme.

According to the NFA, this decision will effectively mean that no ALMO which has not yet achieved its two star rating has any guarantee of funding for its planned Decent Homes programme. This includes those most recently launched ALMOs who are heavily investing in preparing for their forthcoming Audit Commission inspections in the next 6-9 months.

Alison Inman added:

“There are tens of thousands of tenants expecting much needed and long anticipated home improvement work who have been repeatedly reassured by Government that this will be delivered. We call on the Government not to renege on their promises and stand by their pledges to these tenants who are among the most deserving in the country.

“We are disappointed both in the content and the timing of today’s announcement just as Parliament is about to into recess which gives MPs no opportunity to tackle the Government on the issue. As an organisation we intend to fight this contentious decision as hard as we can on behalf of our tenants.”

In a statement to the House of Commons earlier this month, Mr Healey recognised and praised the role of ALMOs in future social housing provision. He said:

“We see a strong future role for ALMOs which are valued by their tenants. We would expect ALMOs to continue to develop their housing management capacity and to look for opportunities to extend the range of services they offer.”