Camden chief: 'there's nothing we could have done differently'

After half a million pounds and six months, its bid to set up an arm's-length management organisation has failed, leaving it at an apparent dead end in its efforts to get the £283m it needs to get the borough's housing up to the decent homes standard.

Whispers from disgruntled officers who spent long nights working on the bid have laid the blame at the door of council leader Dame Jane Roberts and her team.

She insisted from the off that Camden ballot tenants before pressing ahead with the ALMO, despite the timing being optional.

An insider said: "The staff were working every night of the week for the past six months and for the result to be so resoundingly 'no' – they are very down."

Forewarned and forearmed, lobby group Defend Council Housing had several months to flood the north London borough's estates with leaflets calling ALMOs "two-stage privatisation". Local papers gave extensive coverage to the anti-ALMO campaign.

In neighbouring Islington, the ALMO ballot was agreed and announced just days before voting slips went out. The result was a resounding success. It has been suggested that Roberts should have taken the same strong stance and forced the ALMO through.

But Roberts, who was made a dame in the New Year's honours list, is putting on a brave face.

Sitting in her office on Tuesday, four days after the ballot results, she is frank and defends her actions calmly.

"I really don't think there is anything we could have done differently," she says. "I have asked myself whether the ballot's long run-in was a mistake and, given the results, I think not. We would always have had to have a ballot in Camden."

Though unwilling openly to criticise the government, it's clear she thinks it must shoulder the bulk of the blame for forcing the council down an avenue it was reluctant to take.

"There were three options, and three options only, available," she says, referring to the choices of transfer, ALMO and the private finance initiative that are the only methods sanctioned by the government for the future of council housing. "It's very hard to say that's not prescriptive. The question I was asked was 'why the need for change?'"

Roberts will require all her political charm over the next few weeks as she negotiates with ministers over Camden's future.

"We are going to be arguing very strongly that the need hasn't gone away. We need to get that investment into our stock."

But the only way left for Camden to get the cash it needs is for ministers to change the rules.

"If they do that, the whole housing world will go up in smoke," said one London council boss, fearful that councils who have already gone down the ALMO route would furiously round on the government if Camden was given a way out.

As the political bigwigs hammer out solutions and Defend Council Housing campaigners dance on the ALMO's grave, Camden tenants sit waiting for repairs.

"It's very scary," says Cilla Karron, chair of the local residents' federation. "We are the ones that are going to pay."