Meeting the ‘decent homes’ standard

Nearly 9,000 council homes in Lambeth do not meet the Government’s minimum ‘decent homes’ standard. A Decent Home is defined as “in a reasonable state of repair, wind and weather tight, with modern kitchen and bathroom facilities”.

Despite spending £1.5 million a week on improvements, we are facing a £220 million funding gap to get every property up to standard by the 2010 deadline. We need money from the Government and they’ve made three routes available. These are:

• setting up an arms-length management organisation (ALMO)
• transferring the stock to a housing association
• using private finance initiative (PFI) credits

A PFI would be slow and expensive to set up and in any case the bidding round is now closed. Stock transfer would meet with strong political opposition, so we’re pursuing the ALMO route.

Tenant leaders who are familiar with the current governance structures are wary of change. Ideological opponents of ALMOs, groups like Defend Council Housing (DCH), want to persuade tenants that an ALMO is a form of privatisation – even though the housing stock would remain 100 per cent in council ownership under a tenant-led board.

A harder issue is the breakdown in trust between tenant leaders and the housing managers now promoting the ALMO to them. Lambeth’s tenants were stung by their experience of a restructuring programme called ‘Reframing’ that the previous administration drove through after 2002. Reframing delivered some successes, such as a centralised call centre. But it closed down neighbourhood housing offices. It failed to deliver the expected frontline service improvements. And it left Lambeth with the highest unit costs for housing management in London.

Following a £3 million fraud case in the housing department last year, auditors confirmed that financial control systems were routinely being ignored or over-ridden. With repair programmes deferred as a consequence, tenants who had been wary of the Reframing programme from the start wonder why they should trust the same managers this time round. The irony is that if there is no change tenants will be stuck with precisely the management structure they say they don’t trust.

I know from knocking on doors during the election that tenants living in sub-standard accommodation are more concerned about getting their home repaired than they are about the governance structure that delivers it. Politically, we can’t go back to those estates without having improved them.

Some opponents demand that we sit back and wait for the Government to agree a ‘fourth option’ that would see the money made available directly to councils. But with Lambeth Housing’s recent track record on financial mismanagement, I have little doubt that even if there were a fourth option it wouldn’t be made available to Lambeth. Ruth Kelly has confirmed that even the best performing councils will not get a fourth option. With thousands of tenants in Lambeth relying on the council to improve their homes now, we have to work with what’s available.

The legislation requires councils to demonstrate tenant support in a ‘test of opinion’. This can be anything from a yes/no ballot to a partial opinion survey. My personal view is that we won the election less than four months ago on a pledge to make every council home safe, warm and dry together with a long-established understanding we wouldn’t privatise the housing stock. So an ALMO appears to be the best way forward. But it’s vitally important that tenants feel properly consulted and involved every step of the way.

With the ALMO bid now submitted, we’re talking to tenant leaders about the detail of the ALMO and aspects of it that are negotiable. Beyond that, we are discussing how best to consult tenant opinion appropriately – but in a way that allows us to deliver on our manifesto pledges, which are non-negotiable.

The road ahead is strewn with hurdles. Tenant leaders could oppose the ALMO, or the test of opinion might say ‘no’. We could fail to meet the required two-star minimum standard to draw down the money. The Government could turn down our bid, or offer us less than we need. Our political task is to negotiate a safe way round each of these. But our objective is clear – that every council tenant should live in a home that’s safe, warm and dry. A relatively low baseline, but one we’ve never managed to reach before.

Councillor Steve Reed (Labour) is Leader of the London Borough of Lambeth. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those held by the IDeA.

This article was published in September 2006.