Prime Minister welcomes troubled families progress
1 May 2014 03:11 PM
PM welcomes the news
that 40,000 families have been turned around by this innovative programme, with
results doubling in the last 6 months.
The Prime Minister today (1 May
2014) welcomed the news that the government’s Troubled Families programme
has now turned around the lives of almost 40,000 hard to help families, getting
children off the streets and into school and helping people to get back to
work.
A progress
update published by the Department for Communities and Local
Government today showed that 39,480 families have now been turned around since
the programme began, a number which has almost doubled in the past 6 months.
This means that in nearly 40,000 troubled families:
- children who were truanting or
excluded have now been back in school for 3 consecutive terms;
and
- youth crime and anti-social
behaviour across the household have been significantly reduced,
or
- an adult in the household has
been employed for at least 3 consecutive months
With each troubled family
estimated to cost an average of £75,000 a year, these 40,000 families
could have been costing the taxpayer in the region of £3 billion per year
without intervention.
David Cameron said that the fact
that truancy, youth crime and anti-social behaviour have been significantly
reduced in 40,000 homes; and adults are in a job or better able to work, was
helping to secure a better future for both these families and the country as a
whole.
The Prime Minister
said:
Getting some of our
country’s most troubled families’ lives back on track is a key part
of our long-term plan - it saves the taxpayer money, gives people the chance to
get on in life and secures a better future for these families, their
communities and for our country.
Read the Prime Minister’s
LinkedIn blog on why no one is pre-programmed to fail.
He was speaking 2 years after
setting out a challenge to improve the behaviour and reduce the problems of the
120,000 most troubled families in England, bringing down their estimated
£9 billion annual cost to the taxpayer. Under the programme 1 team works
with the whole of a family on all of its problems in a tough, intensive and
coordinated way, getting to grips with what is really going on in the home,
rather than different services reacting to individual
problems.
Today’s figures show that
more than 111,000 families have been identified for help by councils, of which
97,000 are now being actively worked with under the programme. This means that
councils are on course to meet the Prime Minister’s challenge, with the
rate of progress gathering speed as the intensive and practical work with the
families pays off.
Some areas have now turned
around three-quarters of their troubled families or more. Wakefield has already
helped over 85% of its targeted families, Leicestershire 78% and Bristol
75%.
Read case studies about
families’ progress across the country.
Communities and Local Government
Secretary Eric Pickles said:
The Troubled Families programme
is good for the economy as it reduces the £9 billion annual cost to the
taxpayer and helps people back into work. It also improves life for communities
which see less crime and anti-social behaviour and, most importantly, supports
families who get a chance to have a brighter future. Progress is being made in
all corners of the country and I’m proud that this government is taking
action to help change the lives of the families most in need.
Head of the Troubled Families
programme Louise Casey CB added:
This programme works because it
is about dealing with all members of the family and all of its problems, being
tough but supportive and providing intensive, practical help. Councils have
changed the way they work with troubled families to make sure that 1 team or
worker is providing that support, not a dozen different public services. In
doing so they are now seeing results which mean that more families will be able
to be helped in the future.
Listen to Louise Casey talk about the success of the
approach and what today’s figures show
Anne Longfield OBE, Chief
Executive of 4Children said:
Turning around the lives of
families with deeply complex needs is a long journey, requiring intensive work
from highly skilled teams to provide the ongoing and personalised support that
these families need. 40,000 families ‘turned around’ through the
Troubled Families programme is good news. It means 40,000 fewer struggling
families falling into crisis, with real rewards for families, communities and
the public purse.
Troubled Families programme
timeline showing progress since launch to March 2014
Further information
The Troubled Families programme
and this press notice apply to England only.
Troubled families are defined as
those who:
- are involved in youth crime or
anti-social behaviour
- have children who are excluded
from school or regularly truanting
- have an adult on out-of-work
benefits
- cost the public sector large
sums in responding to their problems, an estimated average of £75,000 per
year without intervention
Turning around troubled families
means:
- getting children back into
school
- cutting youth crime and
anti-social behaviour across the whole family
- getting adults into
work
- reducing the costs to the
taxpayer of tackling their problems
See full details of the government’s payment by results framework for
troubled families
The figures
from local authorities on progress within the government’s Troubled
Families programme have been collated from the latest quarterly
returns submitted to DCLG’s Troubled Families Team from all 152
upper tier local authorities in England in March 2014. These do not constitute
official statistics.
Local authorities are paid up to
£4,000 on a payment-by-results basis for turning around troubled
families. The government’s £448 million 3-year budget for 2012-15
is drawn from 6 Whitehall departments who all stand to benefit from the public
sector working more effectively with troubled families.
At the Spending Review last year
it was announced that the Troubled Families programme would be extended to work
with more families. TheBudget in March
announced that work with up to 40,000 of these families would begin this
year.
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