Newcastle's arm's-length management organisation must improve on the council's housing service if it is to benefit from a windfall of £348m.

The council's housing service was last week awarded one star, with promising prospects for improvement, by the Audit Commission.

Your Homes Newcastle, the city's ALMO, is due to take over the council's 35,000 homes in April. It will have a further six months to ensure that housing services gain an additional star at a return inspection in November.

If successful, the ALMO will benefit from central funding of £64m up to April 2006. An extra £284m will be handed out up to 2010 if it continues to perform.

John Lee, chief executive designate of Your Homes Newcastle, said: "We're quite pleased with the result.

"The commission can't comment directly on the ALMO until it is up and running, but we have a clear signal that the service is improving. Many of the points raised by the commission were already in our own programme."

The council's services were criticised by inspectors for inflexible opening hours and patchy performance on emergency repairs.

Nick Atkin, the commission's lead housing inspector, said: "The priority for the ALMO is to achieve at least a two-star rating. The council is taking a number of steps to achieve this, including taking on additional staff."

  • Cheltenham Borough Homes' housing management service is "good" and has been awarded two stars by the commission. The second-round ALMO will receive an extra £15m capital funding over the next two years.

    • Source

    Housing Today