If you are an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) and you manage council homes, then your tenants and leaseholders have the Right to Manage their homes. Under the statutory guidance Local Choice, Local Control, you should be able to ensure that residents get advice about their options for taking control of some or all of their local housing services.

From April 2010 (unless the government changes its mind) you will be regulated by the Tenant Services Authority. You will be accountable to your tenants who will be able to scrutinise your services and have local 'deals' to set and check priorities for their local estate and repair services. This is separate from the representation that tenants have on your Board.

How far you are responsible for empowering tenants depends on your agreement with the council. It may be that the council retains duties inluding advising on the Right to Manage. But in many cases these duties are devolved to the ALMO and tenants and staff need to be clear about who to talk to. Where tenants have control over local services the deal with the ALMO can be a source of confusion - so the National Federation of Tenant Management Organisations has published guidance to help (click here).

Here are some of the things your ALMO might look into:

• help all tenants and leaseholders with local deals and agreements covering day to day services.
• make sure your staff can explain the right to manage and other options and can give advice about how to use these successfully
• work with existing tenant controlled bodies and housing associations to promote new housing development and extend existing management agreements
• make the best use of the TSA's Tenant Empowerment Programme (TEP) which can make grants to develop tenant control with training and independent advice