Control of council housing 'to save local authority £30 million'

Published by Ross Macmillan for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Communities, Local Government

Stevenage Borough Council has decided to bring housing management back in-house with a view to saving nearly £30 million over 30 years which it says will be spent on improving homes.

The local authority says the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) undertook an options review on its behalf and has demonstrated that by taking control of its housing stock - currently being managed by arms-length management organisation (ALMO) Stevenage Homes - the council can save between £635,000 and £830,000 each year.

The ALMO manages the council’s 8,300 homes and provides services to its 1,300 leaseholders under a five year agreement which began on 1 October 2006.

"This is a total of nearly £30 million over the 30-year period of the housing business plan, which will be spent on improving housing rather than on management and administration costs," said Sharon Taylor, the leader of the council.

She said the council started to look at options for housing management earlier this year when the Government removed the requirement on councils to have an arms-length management organisation (ALMO) in order to access Decent Homes funding.

Despite a campaign by The Federation of Stevenage Tenants and Associations (FOSTA) to save the ALMO, the council said its tenants and leaseholders supported the move by a margin of 4:1.

Despite a number of ALMOs - including Hillingdon, Ealing and Slough - returning in-house, 15 have had their management agreements extended or newly agreed by their councils for a total of more than 100 years.

Others - Gloucester and Durham - are looking at a model where the organisation is co-owned by the community and the local authority (CoCo) which would allow it to access private finance.