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Nottinghams ALMO given ten year future (NCH release)

A stable long-term future is secured for Nottingham's council tenants as Nottingham City Council (NCC) signs a ten year partnering agreement with Nottingham City Homes (NCH).

The agreement, signed on Thursday, 17th March, follows a huge programme of improvement in recent years by Nottingham's ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation) NCH. It has seen customer satisfaction rise to 80%, rent arrears cut by more than half and thousands of tenants involved in shaping services.

The Leader and Chief Executive of Nottingham City Council joined Nottingham City Homes' Chief Executive and Chair of the Board to sign the agreement at a special ceremony at Nottingham City Homes' head office on Hounds Gate, Nottingham.

In the past few years Nottingham City Homes has continued to make improvements in housing services. These include:

• Increasing customer satisfaction to 80%
• Being awarded a good 'two star' rating, with 'excellent prospects for improvement', from the Audit Commission in January 2009,
• Reducing rent arrears from £5 million to less than £1.8million
• Delivering a decent homes programme - Secure Warm Modern - that was acknowledged by the Homes and Communities Agency as being one of the most efficient across the country.
• Working in partnership with our tenants and city partners to improve the look and feel of estates, with all our estates now being inspected regularly and marked as two star and above (rated on a zero to three star basis)
• Creating Homelink, a choice based lettings service, that allocates council homes and properties from 11 other registered social landlords across the city. This was given a clean bill of health by the Audit Commission in 2009
• Creating a tenant involvement movement that now has more than 4,700 tenants and leaseholders signed up, representing the views and needs of our diverse customer base, and helping to shape our services.

Janet Storar, the first Tenant Chair of the Nottingham City Homes Board, said:

I am so proud, as a tenant and Chair of this organisation, that in recent years Nottingham City Homes has made such a difference to the lives of tenants, leaseholders and residents across Nottingham.

This agreement confirms to me the confidence Nottingham City Council has in our ability to deliver quality services and work in partnership with them to create homes and places where people want to live.

Councillor Dave Liversidge, Nottingham City Council's Portfolio holder for Housing and the Voluntary Sector, said:

We are looking forward to continuing our successful partnership with Nottingham City Homes and seeing services develop and improve even more through the next decade.

Our new agreement recognises Nottingham City Homes' success since it took over city council housing and our confidence in their plans for the future.

Jean England, Chair of the Nottingham Tenant and Leaseholder Congress, said:

We are all facing a great deal of change over the coming months and years, but I am so pleased to see that this partnership will continue. It gives us the stability we need, and it is a testament to the hard work of employees and involved tenants of Nottingham City Homes over the past few years.

(Monday 21 March 2011 09:00:00 GMT)

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