Beale & Anor, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Camden, Court of Appeal - Administrative Court, January 08, 2004, [2004] BLGR 291,[2004] NPC 2,[2004] HLR 48,[2004] EWHC 6 (Admin)

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Beale & Anor, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Camden, Court of Appeal - Administrative Court, January 08, 2004, [2004] BLGR 291,[2004] NPC 2,[2004] HLR 48,[2004] EWHC 6 (Admin)

Case No: CO/6212/2003

Neutral Citation Number: [2004] EWHC 6 (Admin)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

QUEENS BENCH DIVISION

ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand,

London, WC2A 2LL

Thursday 8 January 2004

Before :

THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE MUNBY

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Between :

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(Transcript of the Handed Down Judgment of

Smith Bernal Wordwave Limited, 190 Fleet Street

London EC4A 2AG

Tel No: 020 7421 4040, Fax No: 020 7831 8838

Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)

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Ms Kate Markus (instructed by Leigh Day & Co) for the claimants

Mr Ashley Underwood QC and Mr Kelvin Rutledge (instructed by the Borough Solicitors Branch) for the defendant

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JudgmentMr Justice Munby :

1. Central government policy is that local authorities must improve their stock of council houses so that by 2010 all social housing tenants have homes meeting the ``decent home standard''. This will obviously cost a lot of money. The London Borough of Camden (``Camden'') estimates that it will cost it £283 million more than it has available. There are various methods by which local authorities can in principle comply with central government's objectives and raise the necessary money. One is by means of a Large Scale Voluntary Transfer (``LSVT''). Another is by means of a Private Finance Initiative (``PFI''). Another - which has been chosen by Camden following an options appraisal which concluded that the LSVT and PFI options were not available to it and that there was no realistic chance of either borrowing the £238 million commercially or persuading the government to provide funds directly to it - is by means of an entity called an Arms Length Management Organisation (``ALMO''), which involves the transfer to the ALMO of the management, but not the ownership, of the local authority's council houses. Such a transfer to an ALMO is provided for by section 27 of the Housing Act 1985 and requires the approval of the Secretary of State (``the SoS''), in practice the approval of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (``ODPM'').

2. In March 2003 ODPM published Guidance on Arms Length Management of local authority housing (``the ODPM Guidance'') which makes it clear (see paragraph 4.8(a)) that in reaching decisions on section 27 applications the SoS will wish to be satisfied about a range of issues, including compliance with key principles in the ODPM Guidance, and that local authorities when...

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