IN-HOUSE HOMES?
CITY COUNCIL CONSIDERS TAKING OVER RUNNING OF NCH TO SAVE CASH
THE city council is considering bringing its housing company, Nottingham City Homes “in house”.
The council owns 100 percent of NCH, but is now assessing whether it should take over its day-to-day running to save money.
No decision has yet been made, but the leader of the council has confirmed the move is under consideration after the Labour-run authority was told to re-assess the number of companies it owns.
A Government inspector was called in after the selling of the failed Robin Hood Energy’s customer base at a loss of around £38 million.
Inspector Max Caller told the council to draw up a three-year rescue plan, and also said it should review the status of its companies, because: “There either never was or no longer is a rationale for the portfolio of companies under the council umbrella.
“Some, for example, Nottingham City Transport or Futures, can only be operated in this format if the council wishes to be involved in delivery.
“Many of the others are mainstream council activity and urgent consideration should be given to bringing these back in house sooner rather than later.
“Whatever happens, the council cannot continue to underwrite trading or provide loan capital in the short term and will need to realise returns and seek repayments where possible.”
Council leader Councillor David
Mellen said: “Mr Caller in his report recommended that we reset the relationship with the council and all our companies, and said that some were more for consideration for bringing in house than others.
“We will need to do a proper assessment as to whether that’s the right thing. We won’t be able to do them all at once. Setting up a company is a hard job. Changing its status is a hard job too, and we will need to do that (assessment) thoroughly, legally and taking into account all the considerations of that.
“You can look at other councils that have taken their housing function back in house – Leeds City Council, for example, and there are other examples of places where it has been taken back in house.
“But there are also many good things that Nottingham City Homes does, and it has won national awards, and that needs to be taken into account as well.
“Revenue and benefits is traditionally a council function, but all would agree that the service delivery to customers and citizens has been improved under the company, so we’ll take that into account in bringing that back in, if we did do that.”
Asked how he thought NCH residents and taxpayers would benefit if the company was brought in house, Councillor Mellen replied: “In terms of facilities, and things we do in the council currently, whether there can be things that are currently duplicated in two different places.
“The city council and the companies, each will have a finance function, each will have an HR function, each will have a property function, so maybe there is an opportunity for those to be aligned. But I don’t want to prejudge that – we are not making the decision to bring companies in house, we are making the decision to consider that.”
The three-year plan was approved by the full council on Monday.