the government has told second-round arm’s-length management organisations not to expect significant new funds after they submitted bids for the next two years.
The hard line by the government comes despite the fact that the first round of ALMOs recently received a £173m cash injection after the government accepted their costs had risen.

Round-two ALMOs had until last Friday to submit a revised cost for funding for 2005-7. Many have been hit by rising construction costs, and have found their homes in a worse condition than first estimated.

Both round-one and round-two ALMOs were originally restricted to bidding £5000 per property. Later ALMOs had no such restriction, and were allowed to bid 5% more to pay for external environmental works to housing estates.

Gwyneth Taylor, policy officer for the National Federation of ALMOs, said: “The ODPM is giving us a fairly strong message that they’re not prepared to stomach much of an increase.”

Source

Housing Today