The Government wants to see council housing managed in a business-like manner. As part of this, all councils had to carry out an option appraisal to show how they will fund improvements that are needed to bring their homes up to the Decent Homes Standard. This appraisal also had to show how any other improvements that tenants want will be funded to make sure that council homes stay in demand in the future. All councils had to complete this appraisal by July 2005. To find out more about option appraisal, click on the link below.

Option Appraisal A Tenants Guide

What were the options that were looked at?

There were four main options that the Council had to consider as part of this option appraisal:

Stock retention

This would mean that the Council would continue to own and manage its homes, as it does now.

Set up an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO)

Under this option, the Council would continue to own its homes and be a landlord, but a new organisation would be set up (an ALMO) that would be run by a management board made up of tenants, councillors and other stakeholders.

ALMO - A Tenants Guide

Private Finance Initiative

With this option, we would again continue to own our homes, but we would enter into a contract with a private sector organisation to invest and improve our properties in return for a guaranteed income.

Private Finance Initiative A Tenants Guide

Large scale voluntary transfer

Under this option, we would transfer the ownership of our housing stock to either an existing or specially set up housing association. This would only happen if a ballot of all our tenants showed that the majority was in favour of it.

Stock Transfer A Tenants Guide

What is the decent homes standard?

To meet this standard, all homes must:

• meet the current legal minimum standard for housing;
• be in a reasonable state of repair;
• have reasonably modern facilities and services;
• provide a reasonable degree of thermal comfort

All councils had to look at the options for meeting this standard, as well as meeting tenants and leaseholders priorities for improvements that exceed this standard.

Decent Homes A Tenants Guide

What was the situation in Tendring?

On 1 April 2006, there were 28.5% council homes in Tendring that did not meet the decent homes standard. We have been carrying out works, such as kitchen and bathroom refurbishment, throughout this time to help us meet the decent homes standard by the deadline of 2010.

Who carried out the option appraisal?

With the agreement of our Tenants Panel, we set up a project team to progress this work. This team known as the Housing Options Steering Group was made up of tenant and leaseholder representatives as well as elected councillors, council officers and other stakeholders.

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