Ealing to take housing management in-house
Ealing Council has dropped plans to pass management of its homes from its arm’s-length management organisation to private companies, following a leadership change.
The move will not save ALMO Ealing Homes from the axe, however. On Tuesday, councillors voted instead to bring the management of the council’s stock back in-house. The policy shift took place because Labour took political control of the council from the Conservative Party in this month’s local elections.
The previous Conservative administration had planned to end the council’s contract with arm’s-length management organisation Ealing Homes from March 2011. Private sector organisations would be invited to bid for contracts to manage Ealing’s 18,000-homes.
But the council’s Labour group had always opposed this. In its manifesto, it pledged to stop ‘the privatisation of the management of council homes’.
In December 2008, the ALMO’s rating from the Audit Commission dropped from two stars to one. The commission report said this was due, in part, to ‘ongoing tensions between Ealing Homes and the council’.
Julian Bell, leader of the council, said: ‘We were concerned the privatisation proposals would mean poor service at higher costs. Immediate effects of bringing the management in-house are increased savings and better performance in terms of service to tenants.’
The National Federation of ALMOs expressed concern that the council was making snap decisions over the future of its stock. Gwyneth Taylor, policy director, said: ‘We hope that it would carry out a full and comprehensive review of all of the issues and hold proper consultation with tenants before making a final decision.’
The decision brings the total number of ALMOs returning to their parent council to three. In February, Hillingdon Council voted to close its ALMO.
The same month Slough Council opened a consultation with tenants into closing People 1st, which manages its stock, as soon as the decent homes programme has completed in December.
Cllr Bell said he hoped the local authority might be able to bring the ALMO back in-house before its contract runs out in March 2011.
He added: ‘We need to look at the books closely, but we believe that we can make around £5 million worth of savings by running the service ourselves. The tenants and leaseholders who were at the meeting were very, very pleased that we won the vote.’
