Two arm's-length management organisations have volunteered to pioneer the government's equity stakes initiative.
Derby Homes and First Choice Homes Oldham aim to offer rewards and bonuses to those of their 30,000 tenants who stay in the long term.

Derby Homes director Phil Davies said he wanted to offer £200 a year in cash to good tenants. "It would give people pause for thought, increase the value of being a tenant and improve the social housing brand."

Oldham is suffering high levels of right-to-buy sales and found it had no means of rewarding loyal tenants. Chief executive Hugh Broadbent said he wrote to deputy prime minister John Prescott offering to pilot the idea or to act as a sounding board.

He said individual rewards were necessary but added: "How to finance it is another ball game."

There was far less support for collective types of stake for the whole community.

The Chartered Institute of Housing has put forward a handful of councils and housing associations in an attempt to get a pilot scheme off the ground.

CIH policy analyst Mark Lupton said he is pressing the government to set up a "challenge fund" to pilot four equity stake models. The cost could be up to £500 a tenant.

He said landlords should not fund the scheme: "The stakes would effectively be funded from tenants' rents. For a policy aimed at redistributing wealth, this is clearly wrong."

Labour committed itself to starting an equity stakes scheme in its manifesto. It could offer an alternative to the right to buy.