ALMOs will manage more homes than transfer landlords by 2006

The number of homes managed by arm’s-length management organisations is set to overtake the number owned by stock transfer associations by the end of next year.

If rounds five and six of the ALMO programme proceed as expected, England’s 58 ALMOs will manage “at least 1 million homes” by the end of 2006 with more to follow, the National Federation of ALMOs has said.

In comparison, 928,874 homes have been transferred to housing associations from local authorities since the policy began in 1988.

Local authorities hope to transfer a further 106,000 homes to registered social landlords by the end of 2007. However, the National Housing Federation said there were likely to be some “no” votes, meaning the overall figure would be “about 1 million”.

The growth in popularity of ALMOs has far outstripped that of stock transfers: after just three years, ALMOs now manage 873,103 properties.

Gwyneth Taylor, policy adviser at the NFA, said: “These figures show that local authorities have confidence in ALMOs as a viable means of meeting the decent homes standard while homes remain in council ownership.”

Taylor said that, to date, the government had committed £1.7bn to the 33 ALMOs that had reached the target of two or more stars from Audit Commission inspections.

The ODPM has set aside a further £2bn to be spent by April 2007 and the NFA estimates that a similar amount will be required by ALMOs up to 2010.

Taylor said: “ALMOs are only three years old and already round-four bodies are setting up. The pace is extraordinary.”