Public meeting says NO ALMO!

On Saturday, over 130 people attended the public meeting organised by Lambeth tenants and leaseholders fighting to have a choice over the future of their council homes. The meeting was organised in conjunction with Lambeth Defend Council Housing and Lambeth UNISON. In the run-up to the meeting tenant activists had distributed 30,000 leaflets to estates across the borough outlining the arguments against the ALMO and advertising the meeting.

Lambeth Council has yet to hear from the government whether it will be allowed to form an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) – a private company to take over the management of council housing – and residents are up in arms, yet it is pushing ahead with its plans regardless. The new Labour administration claims that an ALMO is the only way to secure the government funding needed to improve Lambeth homes and meet the Decent Homes Standard. The meeting heard from a varied panel of speakers who emphatically believe that this is not the case.

Kate Hoey, MP for Vauxhall, started off by condemning the state of council housing in Lambeth and the mismanagement that has led to the current precarious financial position. She promised to keep the campaign for direct investment in council housing, the so-called “fourth option”, a live issue in parliament. Alan Walter, chair of Defend Council Housing, spoke about his experience in Camden, where 77% of residents voted against the ALMO. He also spoke about the future of ALMOs, outlining how banks would eventually be in control of the housing stock rather than councils and noting that some social landlords were discussing floating on the stock exchange. Brian Potter, Chair of Islington Leaseholders Federation, recounted his experience of being on an ALMO board. He emphasised that for him for him the lack of accountability of an ALMO was not a possibility or a question of interpretation, it was a fact, something he had experienced first-hand. John Allison spoke about his experience in the successful campaign on the Ocean Estate, Tower Hamlets, to defeat a proposed stock transfer. He outlined a number of important steps any campaign must take in order to be successful, emphasising engaging with the community. Jean Kerrigan, from Lambeth Tenants Council, talked about the campaign for the fourth option in Lambeth and encouraged people to get involved.

All speakers kept to their allotted time, allowing plenty of time for questions and contributions from the floor following a short break. During the break a pleas for donations resulted in a collection of an impressive £390. Upon hearing that the cost of the hall was £420 the meeting was outraged and demanded that the bill be sent the council, who have hundreds of thousands to spend on glossy literature promoting the ALMO but refuse to present any alternative views.

A common theme among questions from the floor was the accountability of the ALMO to ordinary residents. The council had spun lies about the resident presence on the board representing greater residents’ control over decision-making, but the panel confirmed that residents on the board would be bound by company law to take decisions in the interest of the ALMO private company and would be unable to represent residents’ views.

Another frequently asked question was about the conditions under which the ALMO would receive the promised additional funding. The panel emphasised that not only had the government not made its decision on whether Lambeth would be allowed to form an ALMO, there was no guarantee that even if the ALMO went ahead the government would release the funds at all. It would depend on the government’s future budget plans and on the ALMO getting a two-star Audit Commission rating – both of which are hardly certain things.

As the meeting progressed the indignation at the misinformation residents have been fed time and time again grew, and the cry demanding a ballot became louder. Ted Knight, former leader of the council, noted that by failing to commit to the fourth option the council were ignoring Labour Party policy as well as the views of residents. Furthermore, they patronising people by suggesting that the same group of workers would miraculously perform better under an ALMO than under the council.

Just before it closed, the meeting voted almost unanimously against the ALMO. The sole dissenter was a Labour councillor who had walked in a few minutes previously. The Labour administration were conspicuous by their absence, with only two junior councillors gracing the meeting with their presence, and neither of those for very long: another sign of the lack of regard the council has for the opinions of its residents when pushing ahead with major privatisation schemes.


The next meeting of Lambeth Defend Council Housing is at 7pm on Monday 5th March at Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton. To join the campaign’s email list for announcements of upcoming events, please contact stephenhack@btinternet.com