The government has announced that every eligible council has agreed to run the Government’s Troubled Families programme in their area.
A ‘troubled family’ is defined as one that has serious problems, including parents not working and children not in school, and causes serious problems, such as youth crime and anti-social behaviour, and causing high costs to the public purse. The Prime Minister pledged to turn around the lives of 120,000 troubled families in the next three years through an intervention programme launched in March this year.
Councils will be paid by results up to £4,000 per family towards the cost of successfully intervening with eligible families across England, but will have to meet the remainder of the average cost of £10,000 per intervention themselves. The government’s £448 million three-year budget is drawn from across seven departments.