House of Commons - Community Budgets - Communities and Local Government Committee

Community Budgets - Communities and Local Government Committee Contents

4 The Troubled Families Programme

76. As we noted in chapter 1, the Troubled Families Programme (TFP) was developed in conjunction with the Community Budgets initiative but differs from it in several ways: it uses centrally set objectives and payment by results criteria. When set up, the TFP had the goal of turning around the lives of 120,000 "troubled" families by 2015 and saving public money.[179] Since we began our inquiry the TFP has been expanded to cover an additional 400,000 "high risk" families with additional funding of £200 million available until 2016.[180] In its first year local authorities had worked with 35,618 families representing 85 per cent of the number of those families they had agreed to work with in the first year: under 2 per cent (1,675) of the original 120,000 families had been 'turned around'.[181] Since then the Government has said that "good progress" has been made in delivering the programme and on 10 September 2013 it announced that 14,000 families had been turned around in the first 15 months of the programme.[182] We intend to follow the results of the Troubled Families Programme over the next few years and monitor its impact.

77. Our investigation focused on the rationale behind singling out one cohort of families for help and assessed the value of the programme in the context of other work being done with families through the Whole Place Community Budgets (WPCBs) and other programmes.

Programme criteria

78. The figure of 120,000 "troubled" families appears to have originated from a 2004 study on families and children using data from the Index of Multiple Deprivation.[183] Although the definition of what constituted a troubled family was changed in March 2012 and became narrower—based on the problems caused by certain families and excluding ill-health and economic factors,[184] the figure of 120,000 families remained unchanged. There is, however, evidence to suggest that this figure significantly underestimates the number of families with children that require support. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) indicated, for example, that 2.3 million children (17 per cent of children) were living in relative income poverty at 2010-11.[185] In addition, figures from the Marmot Review Team indicate that 'fuel poor' households in England increased between 2004 and 2010 from 1.2 million to 4.6 million with poverty and cold housing adversely affecting children's educational attainment and mental wellbeing.[186] Nevertheless Louise Casey, DCLG's Director for the TFP, has defended the use of the 120,000 figure as a starting point arguing that accurately assessing the number of families in need of help would take too long and prove largely academic.[187]

79. The main criteria used by DCLG for identifying a "troubled family" are that a family:

a) is involved in crime or antisocial behaviour,

b) has children who are regularly truanting and

c) has an adult on out-of-work benefits.[188]

To be automatically identified as troubled a family would need to meet all of the criteria. Families meeting fewer of the criteria plus a locally defined fourth criteria can be included in the troubled list at local discretion. We found that the fourth criterion was important as without it the definition was too narrow to allow local authorities to work with families that were in need of help.[189] Louise Casey emphasised that this additional criterion was about "local discretion" and said that local criteria were largely aimed at "domestic violence, substance misuse, particularly drug abusers, and looked after children" but varied from area to area.[190]

80. We found that local authorities were also working with families, through their community budget programmes, who were 'on the edge' of the criteria, in order to prevent them from "descending" into being troubled.[191] This mix of categories of 'troubled', 'on the edge' and 'just coping'[192] families and the change in focus from the broad group of families with complex needs to troubled families had led to confusion among local authorities over which were "target families". This could mean that "positive outcomes" from earlier initiatives were not always harnessed.[193]

81. The number of families encompassed by the Troubled Families Programme does not cover all the families and children that require support. We therefore welcome the expansion of the programme to cover an additional 400,000 "at risk" families. However we note that the new resources made available to the programme until 2016 are not proportional to this expansion. This additional workload is likely to challenge the capacity and resources of local areas. As a result it will be even more important than it has been for the Department for Communities and Local Government to carefully monitor progress and provide further resources if necessary.

OVERLAPPING PROGRAMMES

82. The TFP is one of several programmes aimed at addressing the problems experienced and caused by some families so we examined whether the TFP was adding to work already being done or causing duplication. DWP has a separate but related programme, using money from the European Social Fund, directed at troubled families with a history of worklessness.[194]A wider pool of families with complex needs is also being worked with within Community Budgets. In addition, there are other similar initiatives, such as 'Safeguarding Children' and 'Looked After Children'.

83. The central purpose of the TFP has been to join up family services by appointing troubled families' coordinators in each of the 152 local authority areas participating in the programme. These coordinators bring together local partners including the police, Job Centre Plus, health organisations and schools to develop plans for working with individual families.[195] This work is similar to that being done in WPCB and Neighbourhood Community Budgets (NCB) areas to address the needs of families.[196] The District Councils' Network (DCN) told us that "there were considerable concerns over conflicting and overlapping troubled families initiatives"[197] adding that "integration of services should not simply seek to impose new, top-down systems of joint-commissioning and integration. Such an approach can potentially stifle existing or emerging innovation".[198]

84. Although we received some evidence of concerns about overlapping programmes, a number of local authorities were integrating their troubled family and families with complex needs work, using the TFP to 'kick-start' the process of joined up working.[199] We heard evidence that the TFP could lay some of the groundwork for future work which other programmes could take advantage of.[200] DCLG told us that the TFP offered a "once in a generation opportunity to understand the problems that affect troubled families at a national scale" and to provide a "rigorous evidence base for effective practice and system reform for the future".[201]

85. We fully support the work being done through the Troubled Families Programme and recognise that it is providing much needed resources to address the acute problems faced by some families. However, central and local government need now to begin to think about the way these families will be worked with after the Troubled Families Programme ends and how local authorities can maximise its impact by integrating the current programme and its results into their future plans. The Troubled Families Programme should not detract from work being done locally with the much larger pool of families with complex needs including children living in poverty and children who do not have a good level of development at five years old.

Payment by results

86. The use of a payment by results (PBR) system has been introduced as a part of the TFP,[202] to ensure that local authorities' efforts meet the Government's target of turning around 120,000 troubled families by 2015, and the additional 400,000 "high risk" families, by 2016.[203] Some 40 per cent of the programme funding is available from central government through this system: the remaining 60 per cent has to be found in the budgets of local government and agencies working with these families.[204]

87. We found that the PBR system has both positive and negative aspects. It encouraged agreement on specific measurable outcomes[205] and provided a strong accountability mechanism for the TFP.[206] Essex County Council said that PBR worked best when "the outcomes are clear, specific and easy to measure and track" but warned that "if these conditions are not met, PBR frameworks can distort delivery incentives".[207] Essex County Council gave two examples where PBR risked distorting incentives. First, the programme could create a disincentive for authorities to work with more challenging families by creating a cut-off level of progress below which areas would not receive a payment.[208] The second was that work could be skewed towards getting families back into work by allowing PBR payments on the basis of one family member moving into continuous employment "regardless of other outcomes".[209] We also heard that, if a degree of 'pump-priming' funding was not available under PBR, the achievement of measurable results may be set back by the lack of necessary investment[210] and that agencies might reduce their level of investment and hold back funds to cover the risk of non-payment of PBR money.[211]

88. In February 2013 DCLG announced that it would hold back troubled families funding for 2014-15 from local authorities that had been working with fewer than three quarters of the families they had pledged to support by 31 March 2013.[212] The full amount of funding for the second year of the programme would be withheld until those authorities showed they were supporting the "vast majority" of those they said they would help in the first year of the scheme.[213] The figures released in March 2013 showed that 37 of the 152 local authority areas worked with less than 75 per cent of their year one families.[214] When we asked Louise Casey about the use of PBR to achieve results within the programme, she responded that:

I am not putting the cosh to these guys over their results payments yet [...] I would rather they had the time to get their services organised and their approaches and leadership right[...] We have to hold our nerve to give these people time to work with these families.[215]

89. We welcome comments by Louise Casey that, in the case of the Troubled Families Programme, sanctions should not be imposed too early in the Programme on local authorities that have failed to meet the payment by results criteria as this might affect the programme's overall outcome. In responding to our report we ask that the Department for Communities and Local Government clarify whether any local authorities have had funding withheld for failure to work with 75 per cent of the families they promised to in the first year. DCLG should also monitor whether there are any perverse incentives generated by the use of payment by results within the Troubled Families Programme and take steps to address these if they arise.

PAYMENT BY RESULTS WITHIN COMMUNITY BUDGETS

90. Within the context of our broader inquiry we looked at whether PBR had the potential for use within Community Budgets. Councils such as Essex were positive about the prospects for PBR within its WPCB especially for use by local public service partners "as a tool for commissioning effective public services" from delivery partners.[216] Essex County Council said that its

Local partners believe they have a key role to play in the future of the Whole Place model and are engaged in work to develop our own PBR to attract social investment into local programmes focused on Drug Recovery, Alcohol abuse and preventing acute health and care need.[217]

Cheshire West and Chester Council said that PBR could also lead to central government creating more "evidence-based interventions" by allowing it to monitor outcomes of projects more closely.[218] It warned that using a PBR mechanism to fund one aspect of a complex system could lead to the creation of more silos.[219] The Council suggested instead an approach to PBR that encompassed a wide range of factors, not simply focusing on one aspect of a family or service user, an approach that was supported by Geoff Little from Manchester City Council who said that there was potential to learn from the approach of the TFP where:

you actually have a way of joining up that payment by results, so you have horizontal integration at a neighbourhood level, with outcomes around work, school, antisocial behaviour and local government saying there are other things for these families we need to factor into the system, you get real results and everybody benefits. We need to learn from the TFP as a really creative use of payment by results.[220]

91. We see potential for Community Budgets to experiment with the use of payment by results mechanisms—set on a local basis—which may be particularly useful in motivating service delivery partners. However, the centrally driven and monitored Troubled Families Programme stands apart from Community Budgets. The programme's top-down ethos should not subvert Community Budgets which must be driven locally so that they can effectively address local needs. While payment by results by central government may be one method of assessing the potential of Community Budgets to produce positive results, this approach also risks distorting incentives and its use should therefore be carefully considered. The decision to use payment by results on a local level for Community Budgets is therefore one for each local area to make.

179 "Troubled Families programme", DCLG website, www.gov.uk/government/policies/helping-troubled-families-turn-their-lives-around, 12 February 2013 Back

180 "Massive expansion of Troubled Families programme announced", DCLG press notice, 24 June 2013 Back

181 The first year results for the programme were made available in March 2013. DCLG website, "Troubled Families: progress", www.gov.uk/government/publications/troubled-families-progress-information-on-the-number-of-families-worked-with-in-year-1 Back

182 DCLG website, "14,000 troubled families turned around", 10 September 2013, and DCLG, Government response to the riots: the first Communities and Victims Panel's first report, July 2013, see also Ev 56 [DCLG]. Back

183 Department for Education, advisory note, http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/doc/e/estimated%20distribution%20of%20families%20with%20multiple%20problems%20as%20at%20march%2011.doc Back

184 DCLG, Financial framework for the Troubled Families programme's payment-by-results scheme for local authorities, p 4 Back

185 Department for Work and Pensions, Child poverty in the UK: Report on the 2010 target, 2012, p 8 Back

186 Marmot Review Team, The health impacts of cold homes and fuel poverty, 2011, pp 20 and 32 Back

187 "Troubled Families tsar: intervention programme will free up resources", The Guardian online, www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/07/troubled-families-tsar-intervention-resources 7 April 2013 Back

188 DCLG website, www.gov.uk/government/news/study-to-assess-impact-of-troubled-families-work, 14 March 2013 Back

189 Ev 74 [Essex] Back

190 Q 192 Back