Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Marcus Jones and Bridget Phillipson

Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

11. What assessment he has made of the cost-effectiveness of the troubled families programme.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)]

Between 2012 and 2015, nearly 120,000 families on the troubled families programme saw their lives improve. In October, we published a report on the programme’s costs and potential fiscal benefits based on local authority data. A first assessment on the cost-effectiveness of the new programme will be available next year.

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am grateful to the Minister, but I am not sure whether he has had a chance to thoroughly read the report commissioned by his own Department on the scheme; it found no evidence of a significant or systematic impact on the key objectives of the programme. Will Ministers set out why the decision was taken to spend hundreds of millions of pounds expanding the programme before they could even know whether that was money well spent?

[Mr Jones]

This party is absolutely focused on outcomes, not process. Nearly 120,000 families have had their lives improved, and I for one am proud that there are more children back at school, that youth crime is down and that more than 18,000 adults involved with the programme are back in work.