Councils get to grips with payment-by-results for troubled families

When the Prime Minister pledged in December to transform the lives of England’s 120,000 most troubled families by 2015, details of exactly how the ambitious target would be met were thin on the ground.

Since then, information on how the programme will work in practice, such as how troubled families will be identified, has slowly emerged.

Now, four months after David Cameron launched the drive, the government has unveiled detailed plans for its troubled families payment-by-results scheme.

Local authorities will be able to claim up to £4,000 for each family they transform, on the basis that they get children back into school, reduce youth crime and anti-social behaviour, put adults on a path back to work and bring down the £9bn annual costs caused by dealing with such families. Part of this cash will be available upfront to kick-start the activity.

The government has praised the 10 local authorities with the highest number of troubled families – which account for a fifth of the 120,000 target – for committing to the payment-by-results programme, although in reality few councils are likely to opt out, given the financial incentive on offer.

Additional funding
For example, Birmingham, which has the most troubled families with an estimated 4,180, could be in line for an additional £13.9m of government funding over the next three years if it successfully turns the lives of families around.

Norfolk, another of the “top 10” authorities, has about 1,700 troubled families in its area. The council estimates that its troubled families will benefit from at least £4m of additional investment over the next three years.

Alison Thomas, lead member for children’s services at the council, says the cash will help the authority build on existing work to support families in the area, through Family Intervention Projects.

“The extra funding means we and our partners can go even further in transforming the lives of Norfolk’s children, raising aspirations and levels of achieve-ment and unlocking the potential of children and adults,” she says.

“We are in a position where we can focus on the most deprived and in-need families as early as possible with all agencies working together to tackle problems, rather than treating them in isolation.”

To receive the full amount of funding on offer, councils will have to target families whose children are missing school, involved in youth crime or anti-social behaviour and in which at least one adult is claiming out of work benefits. But the government is also allowing councils to work with families who “cause high costs to the public purse”, thereby giving authorities the flexibility to choose which families to involve in their local programmes.

Peter Grigg, director of research and policy at the Family and Parenting Institute, believes this local flexibility will be crucial to the success of the scheme.

“There is more work to be done on exactly how outcomes will be measured and how progress will be demonstrated in each of the target areas, but broadly the categories for defining troubled families seem workable,” he says.

“We would hope to see some interesting approaches from local authorities using their discretion. It may be that they target families based on a measure to do with parenting or domestic violence.”

However, Grigg warns that the payment-by-results element must be carefully executed to avoid introducing perverse incentives – resulting in councils “cherry-picking” families for whom it is easier to improve outcomes.

“The payment-by-results mechanism is prone to a bit of gaming and perverse activity going on to meet targets,” he explains. “The voluntary sector can play a key role in checking whether some of that gaming activity is happening. It can keep an eye on schemes and on what is happening to target groups.”

He adds that the voluntary sector is also well placed to check whether different government payment-by-results schemes are overlapping. For example, the troubled families programme may intersect with the children’s centres payment-by-results pilots in some localities.

“The voluntary sector could have a formal role in looking out for duplication,” Grigg says. “Payment-by-results is relatively untested, so we will have to keep developing and improving it.”

Wider measures
Mark Wheeler, director of services at Family Action, agrees that the payment-by-results mechanism could inadvertently narrow the range of families that councils choose to work with. He says the outcome measures for the programme should be widened.

“A focus on children’s wellbeing and child protection should feature alongside payment-by-results for school attendance, getting parents into work and reducing antisocial behaviour,” he says. Some families who are not immediately apparent to local authorities could miss out on support, he adds.

“We welcome the fact that local authorities will have some discretion in identifying families they can work with,” he says. “However, we know from our work with very disadvantaged and vulnerable families that home-based support is vital. Very often the true extent of the problems facing these families is only revealed once we’ve begun our work and too much of a focus on criminal and antisocial activity could miss a large number of families with very real needs.”

Wheeler is also concerned about the fact that central government is only proposing to fund 40 per cent of the cost of turning around each troubled family.

“Working with already troubled families is not early intervention work – this is likely to be long-term family support work because families have not been supported early enough,” he says. We need to see increased investment in really early intervention services, which target families before they reach this crisis point.”

Troubled families payment-by-results plan