Not really news for UK gamers but judging by comments being made especially from USA based hobbyists it might be. GW never stopped running organised play and have been running events at Warhammer World.
More interestingly is that they've been running AoS organised play with a balancing mechanic. It works through a combination of model count, martial strength (wound count) and the scenario itself. I've posted picture of the battle plan for the Clash of Empires event so you can have a look. This is free to download on the Warhammer World website. This has been used for other events and the total number of miniatures does vary from event to event.
From what participants have said it works rather well and can cause the deployment phase to become a rather interesting game of bluff. Generally speaking being the underdog is often the most preferable.
I guess it is still open for abuse but it does provide very easy way to aid in making games more balanced. At Warhammer world it is used to conjunction with an event pack which adds the usual "fully painted citadel miniatures" rule and clarifies that artillery and their crew all count as separate models.
Also given what has been rumoured about GW rolling out organised play back to the colonies. It might give a clue as how that will look.