Leeds City Council has recently switched to the ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation) method of managing its housing stock. The ALMO scheme is designed to improve standards and efficiency by introducing competition and operating more like a commercial organisation.
The council provides an ALMO with its own staff, premises and budget and allocates it a housing area to manage. The ALMO is autonomous from the rest of the council and other ALMO's and is responsible for managing it's own housing stock and budget.
ALMO's will generally partner with a contractor or group of contractors to provide its services which include property maintenance. Each ALMO produces KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) to compare their efficiency to other ALMO's.