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. You can read the Management Agreement

What is an ALMO and how does East Kent Housing 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 is 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 Governance Framework describes the way the Board works and the standards Board members are expected to keep.

East Kent Housing only looks 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.