Questions to answer on 'troubled families' policy
15 Dec 2011Press Story
Responding to David Cameron's announcement of the way forward on his pledge to "turn round the lives of 120,000 of Britain's troubled families", Matt Cavanagh, Associate Director IPPR, said:
"This is good news. These families combine behaviour that is harmful or disruptive to the rest of society with reliance on benefits, social housing and other services, reinforcing the sense that they are taking a lot from their fellow citizens while giving nothing positive back. And although effectively dealing with their problems can be expensive, they already cost government and society a lot of money, as the Prime Minister is rightly emphasising today.
"The dedicated 'troubleshooters' who will coordinate all the different services who already work with these families - police, probation, local authorities, schools, doctors, and so on - and who will support the families to come up with "action plans" to turn their lives around, and apply sanctions if they don't co-operate, appear to be closely modelled on caseworkers in Family Intervention Projects.
"These projects were first piloted on a national basis under Tony Blair as part of his 'Respect Agenda' in 2006, and significantly expanded under Gordon Brown in 2008 and 2009, to the point where they were reaching around 5,000 families a year in 2010.
"While this announcement is good news, it does raise a number of questions:
? First, is the government defining and measuring the problem in the right way? The 120,000 figure appears to be based on work by the Social Exclusion unit in the Cabinet Office which is at least four years old. If it has not done so already, the government should commission, and publish, more up to date research which will guide this flagship programme.
? Second, the government is entirely right to say this funding should come from savings in other programmes, but there is still a big question-mark over whether the funding will be enough. The evidence clearly shows that successful interventions of this kind cost £20,000 for every family which completes the programme (the great majority of this cost is the cost of dedicated caseworkers). Based on this unit cost, the funding announced today, of around £450m over four years, would cover between 20,000 and 25,000 families. Even if the intention is that this funding will be matched by local authorities, it will struggle to cover the whole target group. There are then two risks. One is that the funding will be diluted. This would be a disaster: the more these "troubleshooters" are stretched across bigger caseloads, the less effective they will be. The other, particularly if there is an element of payment by results, is the risk that providers will go for the families who are easiest to turn round, rather than those who are doing the most damage to society.
? Third, while it is true - as the Prime Minister is emphasising today - that these interventions save money, it is also true that the savings accrue across very different time periods and different parts of the public sector. Only some of them are cashable savings (for example, the cost of children going into care). If for example a troubleshooter succeeds in reducing the amount of anti-social behaviour a particular family causes, while this is a great benefit to society, it is very unlikely to provide clear cashable savings - and it is important not to pretend otherwise, if we are to develop a sustainable funding model for these interventions.
Notes to Editors
BBC coverage of Cameron's speech:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16187500
The latest evaluation of Family Intervention Projects can be found here:
Matt Cavanagh's article on Family Intervention Projects and other early intervention programmes in August:
Contacts
Richard Darlington, 07525 481 602, r.darlington@ippr.org
Tim Finch, 07595 920899, t.finch@ippr.org