Tenants of Slough Borough Council’s troubled private housing firm will not be ‘cast adrift’ the council leader has promised.

James Elliman Homes is a private housing company wholly-owned by Slough Borough Council – and has come to house dozens of homeless families.

But the council is now considering its future after it failed to turn a profit or manage its homes properly – raising the possibility that it could be closed or sold. Council leader Dexter Smith has said that whatever happens, he will ‘make sure the rights of tenants are reserved’.

The leader said: “We’re not speaking of casting them adrift. We’ll be very careful in terms of making sure their tenants’ rights are reserved.”

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Slough Borough Council set up James Elliman Homes in 2017. But the company has consistently operated at a loss since 2020.

The council says James Elliman Homes has also not been able to make sure ‘properties are managed to a decent standard and rent arrears and voids are managed’. That’s because although it’s a company in its own right it employs no staff itself, using council officers instead.

James Elliman Homes also doesn’t have a ‘fully functioning’ management board, which has led it to submit its accounts late two years running – putting it at risk of being struck off both times.

Now, the council is to ‘consider the role and case for continuing’ with the company. Councillor Smith said the council would have to ‘think long and hard about what the options are.’

He was speaking as leading councillors were given an update on the company at a meeting on Thursday, September 12.

Council officers said one of the problems had been that there had been ‘insufficient separation’ between the council and the company. They said that although James Elliman Homes provided a ‘really valuable service’ in housing homeless families it had not met its objective as a private business to ‘provide a return to its shareholder’.

Council officers also said James Elliman Homes should now produce a business plan looking at how it becomes profitable. They suggested that if it couldn’t do this, its future might be at risk.

“It has to drift in the direction of travel to remove this cumulative loss position otherwise we then get into different conversations,” one said. They added: “It is not possible and not appropriate for a company to be continuing to increase its accumulative loss position.”

The officer also said the council would have to ‘give full consideration’ to the impact on tenants of any decision. They said: “It’s very clear that those properties provide a very key service to our temporary accommodation service.”

Councillor Gurcharan Manku argued that James Elliman Homes could still be ‘a good asset’ for the council.

He said similar companies ‘work well in other places and it’s the right concept’. He added: “Let’s make it work for us and our residents.”

The council cabinet’s asset disposals sub-committee is set to be given a further update in October.