Natalie McGarry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Natalie McGarry on 2016-09-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the effect that the Government’s Troubled Families programme has had on meeting its objectives related to underprivileged communities.

Mr Marcus Jones

The Troubled Families Programme has an important role to play in tackling disadvantage and poverty through its focus on families affected by complex, multiple problems in England. The programme encourages services to consider the overlapping nature of problems which families face – tackling the root causes rather than responding to each problem in isolation. It promotes a new way of working, with services coming together – typically through one dedicated worker – working with and understanding the needs of the whole family instead of constantly reacting to their individual problems.

Through the original programme, launched in 2012, over 116,000 families had their lives ‘turned around’ using the criteria of the first programme, with children back in school; youth crime and anti-social behaviour significantly reduced; and over 18,000 adults from troubled families into work. The new expanded programme now aims to support 400,000 families with multiple, complex problems by 2020, and transform for the long term the way that public services work with families facing multiple disadvantages.