Agenda item

The Chair welcomed Joe Tuke, Director of the Troubled Families team at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), to the meeting.  Joe highlighted that the aim of the Troubled Families programme was to turn around the lives of 120,000 troubled families by May 2015, and that currently the programme was on track to meet this target.

The Board noted that the programme would be extended for a further five years from 2015/16, and the expanded programme would aim to help an additional 400,000 troubled families.   To ensure that the programme was reaching the right families, the programme would retain a focus on schooling, youth crime, anti-social behaviour and unemployment, but would expand to cover domestic violence, vulnerable and younger children, people with physical and mental health problems, those in debt and inter-generational criminality. 

DCLG would work with a broad range of local and national partners to get views on which problems should be prioritised and how the programme should be designed.  There would be local discretion on outcomes and on what constituted significant and sustained progress in particular areas (e.g. a reduction in crime or unemployment).  Payment of grant funding for the programme would be linked to incremental improvements that reached quality thresholds, and would be evaluated locally and nationally. 

Members made a number of comments including:

·         Whether families who had progressed to a certain level and had slipped back would receive additional funding if they had made subsequent progress.

·         There should be even greater co-ordination on the programme across government departments, e.g. Health and DWP.

·         If disruptive children were integrated back into school a package of support for the school should be provided.

·         How did the programme ensure that not just the easiest families to turn around were where effort was concentrated?

·         Local government put the most resources into tackling domestic violence, but the police and criminal justice system also benefitted from this work.

Joe Tuke commented that the government favoured payment by results in public services. £9 billion had already been spent on 120,000 troubled families but more funding was required from 2015/16 onwards to ensure that the needs of other troubled families were met. Regarding co-ordination of services, it was noted that 150 members of staff from Job Centre Plus across the country had been seconded to help people towards employment, and this resource would be doubled next year.  There was a cost savings calculator that had been developed as part of the expanded programme which could be helpful in making the case to other agencies to invest in the programme.  There was a process for checking who councils worked with and there was no evidence that they had concentrated on the easiest families to turn round. The Board noted that local governance of work on troubled families was usually undertaken through Health and Wellbeing Boards, as most relevant agencies were represented. 

Actions:

Request to see the cost savings calculator used for the programmes costs benefit analysis.

Email copy of presentation to Board members.

Decision:

Members noted the report and thanked the Director of the Troubled Families team for attending.