Leeds City Council unveiled the names of the three new Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) that are to manage its housing stock.
The new ALMOs - East North East Homes Leeds, West North West Homes Leeds, and South South East Homes Leeds - came into being on 1 April. The move to three ALMOs will cut costs and free up more money for improvements to the housing stock while ensuring local people remain closely involved in how housing is run.
Each ALMO will continue to be directly involved in its local areas through special Local Panels, which give tenants more say in how their estates are run.
The change follows a city-wide ballot of council tenants that saw more than half those who voted saying the council should reduce the number of ALMOs from six to three. The decision to ballot tenants followed on from a review of the long-term viability of ALMOs in Leeds. This concluded that six ALMOs was not an option.
Since Leeds decided to set up six ALMOs, the number of council homes in the city has fallen to 61,000. This means that income has fallen and, if these arrangements had remained in place, running costs at the time would have left the city facing a £12 million deficit.
Limits on the size of ALMOs meant when the Council set them up, in 2003, there had to be six to cover the whole city. Since then, the Government has relaxed the size rules.
A new system for allocating social housing in Bristol went live in March.
Bristol City Council administers a housing register for applicants for its 29,000 council homes and a further 10,000 homes managed by housing association partners. Until now, this included a waiting list for new applications and transfers, who were awarded points based on their needs, and a separate priority list for homeless families, domestic violence and urgent medical and other urgent cases.
Now all applications will be put into one of five bands depending on the urgency of their need to move. When a property becomes available, it will be allocated to the person in the highest band looking for that type and size of property, who has been waiting the longest.
All current applications on the housing register will be allocated to one of the five bands. Letters will be sent to applicants over the next three weeks to inform them which band they are in.
The new banding system is the first step towards the introduction of Home Choice Bristol, which is likely to be launched in the autumn. Home Choice Bristol will advertise all properties that become available on a website. People on the waiting list for housing will then be able to choose which properties they are considered for. Adverts will also be placed in a newspaper or newsletter, for people who are unable to use the Internet.