Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has welcomed the news that Warwickshire County Council has decided to sign up to the Government’s Troubled Families programme. Mr Pickles said he was delighted that 805 families in the county will get extra help to get children off the streets and into school, reduce youth crime and anti-social behaviour and put adults on a path back to work.
The scheme is being run on a payment-by-results basis with up to £4,000 available for every family that is successfully turned around. This means that up to £3.22million will be available to Warwickshire over the next three years.
Under the deal Government will pay councils up to £4,000 per eligible family if they tackle the problems causing high rates of truancy, youth crime and anti-social behaviour or put parents on a path back to work. It is estimated that the cost of working with these families could amount to as much as £75,000 per family per year, with £8bn of this spent on reacting to, rather than getting to the root causes of, the issues affecting their lives.
Under the scheme, arrangements will be made to make sure that families will have the necessary help to work through all of their problems and bring in specialist services as required to give them the best possible chance of turning their lives around.
Cllr Heather Timms, portfolio holder for Children, Young People and Families, said: “Warwickshire is carrying out a great deal of good work with projects helping troubled families that will go a long way towards improving outcomes for troubled families.
“We will continue to work with families and look at how the cycle can be broken. We will remove obstacles to children attending school regularly and will seek to make that experience a positive one for them in which they take advantage of the opportunities that an education can provide. It is clear to me that we need to use this initiative as an opportunity to rethink the way in which public agencies do business and put in place a fresh approach based on partnership work and reducing duplication.”
Cllr Richard Hobbs, the portfolio holder for community protection, echoed the view that Warwickshire County Council has been looking at how the county can tackle the problem of troubled families by looking at the source. He said:
“It has been the view of Warwickshire County Council that we should try to remove the causes at source. We share Mr Pickles’ determination to change the lives of these families for the better, and we can help them to help themselves.”
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said:
“It is great news that Warwickshire has agreed to run this programme. Together we can finally tackle a problem that has long been grappled with. We cannot go on spending so much taxpayers’ money on such a small amount of families without turning their lives around once and for all. This programme is a unique opportunity to do so.
“We now have an opportunity to offer real and lasting change for these families and the communities around them. Everyone will benefit from getting kids off the streets and into school; getting parents off benefits and into work; and cutting youth crime and anti-social behaviour. But it is also right that we will only pay councils in full if they deliver the results that we require.”