Another hat I wear, apart from my position at Merton, is being an independent board member of an ALMO. As well as being highly stimulating, this role provides an interesting, alternative perspective on the day job. HouseMark is a joint venture by the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation – two not-for-profit organisations dedicated to improving housing standards – and it has just completed an independent assessment of the ALMO programme on behalf of the CLG – Ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the ALMO programme. Between 2001/02 and 2006/07, the picture is one of improving performance, particularly in the areas of tenancy management, repairs and satisfaction. More interestingly, ALMOs have higher inspection scores than council housing, which is not managed at arm's length, or housing associations. Inspection results show 80% achieving two or three stars, and ‘promising' or ‘excellent' prospects for improvement also by 80%. Where they have been re-inspected, most ALMOs have improved their ratings – more than 90% achieving two or three-star ratings at first inspection have either retained their rating or improved it, and almost half who achieved two stars at their first inspection achieved three stars at their next. Now, I haven't set these figures out to crow about the performance of my ALMO – we are not included in these figures. I am more interested in what these figures mean for local government. It seems to me that higher performance by ALMOs can only be explained by one, or both, of two factors – first, that services improve when there is a substantial performance reward at stake, in this case money to meet the Decent Homes standard, or second, that services improve when they are managed at arm's length from the democratic body. Both of these do not reflect well on local government. Nonetheless, we could see them as opportunities to learn and create analogous systems which incentivise performance. Why is it that performance reward stimulates increased performance, and how can we marshal current resources that replicate this, in type if not scale? Why is it that services can perform better when at arm's length, and should more be given such quasi-independence, with the added benefit of enhancing the strategic and place-shaping role of local government back at the ranch? Someone once said, ‘If you love someone, them let them go'. For local government, does this evidence mean that if you value high performance for your residents, you should place decision-making around operational service delivery at a goodly distance from the heart of your organisation? It's worth thinking about. n
