The second round of arm's-length management organisations got off the ground in earnest last week when First Choice Homes Oldham achieved the two-star rating required to access government funding.
The ALMO, which owns roughly 18,000 homes, will be able to draw down an extra £32.4m over the next two years after the Audit Commission's housing inspectorate awarded the body a two-star "good" rating.

Oldham was the first of the second-round ALMOs to be inspected. Inspections of the remaining 12 second-round ALMOs are continuing and all the results are due to be published by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, representatives from the highest-performing first-round ALMOs have been lobbying the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for additional financial freedoms.

Ashfield Homes, Derby Homes and CityWest Homes, all of which received three stars, want borrowing powers to allow them to build homes and invest in environmental improvements.

The calls follow last year's "blue skies" paper on local government finance, issued by the ODPM, which floated the idea of prudential borrowing for those councils that performed the best.

Phil Davies, director of Derby Homes, said: "If we can get freedoms for three-star ALMOs, then hopefully we can go on to include the rest."

Source

Housing Today