Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which criteria his Department uses to assess the effectiveness and value for money of the troubled families programme.

The current Troubled Families Programme is subject to a comprehensive national evaluation which will assess its effectiveness and value for money. This will report at intervals during the lifetime of the programme.

The evaluation data published alongside the programme’s first annual report to Parliament (published in April 2017: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-evaluation-of-the-troubled-families-programme-2015-to-2020 ) provides baseline data for future impact and economic evaluation.

The assessment of the current programme’s effectiveness will be based on reductions in problems experienced by families. These problems relate to the eligibility criteria for entering the programme. The eligibility criteria are listed in the document “Financial Framework for the Expanded Troubled Families Programme” on page 8 (published April 2015:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/409682/Financial_Framework_for_the_Expanded_Troubled_Families_Programme_april_2015.pdf).

A cost savings calculator which local authorities use to upload local costs will enable a national cost benefit analysis to be undertaken later in the programme using unit costs attached to outcomes from national administrative datasets and locally submitted costs data. Cost benefit analysis at local authority level will show any costs avoided and savings through the troubled families programme.