Four years after phase one of the Troubled Families Programme was launched in April 2012, the government has published impact, economic and process evaluations of the scheme.
Key findings in an independent report by Ecorys commissioned by the Department for Communities and local government and published this month, showed that changes in employment, benefit receipt, school attendance, safeguarding and child welfare, could not be attributed to the troubled families programme.
When it was launched in 2012, the troubled families programme was the first national and systematic attempt to improve the lives of families with multiple problems.
The scheme is so far estimated to have cost more than £1bn, including £450m from central government.
The aim was to integrate the action of public services and deal with more than one problem or one family member in a household, by using a keyworker as a single point of contact.
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 or cost the public sector large sums in responding to their problems.
Successful turnarounds are identified where children return to school, anti-social behaviour is significantly reduced or an adult in the household returns to work for three consecutive months or more.
Although raw data failed to suggest the programme had any significant impact, the report highlighted a number of positive subjective and attitudinal measures.
Troubled families interviewed were more likely to report managing well financially; knowing how to keep on the right track; being confident that their worst problems were behind them, and feeling positive about the future, when compared with a matched comparison group.
Indeed, the evaluation doesn’t rule out the possibility of positive impacts over a longer time period.
Highlighting ‘increased levels of confidence and optimism’, the report suggests these ‘green shoots’ may have been undetectable by early surveying methods.
In a statement published online this weekend, the under-secretary of state for communities, Lord Bourne defended the programme.
‘We know that more than 116,000 of the families who participated in the first phase of the programme have seen significant improvements in their lives, with children back in school for a year, reduced youth crime and anti-social behaviour, and adults holding down a job.
Of course, there will always be lessons to learn. As a pioneering programme, working with complex families in this way and on this scale for the first time, we never expected to get everything right and have never claimed to have done so.
We believe this programme has transformed the lives of thousands of families. The councils and frontline staff who have put it into practice should be pleased with the work they have done.
And, most of all, the families should be proud of having had the courage and commitment to change their lives for the better. They valued the programme because for them it worked.
So we will not turn our backs on these families. We will continue to help and support even more families who are just about managing, or not managing at all, as we build a Britain that works for everybody and not just the privileged few.’
http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/opinion/1147494/taking-trouble
http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/news/1143294/troubled-families-programme-miss-target
