Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
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.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
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:
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.
Asked by: Oliver Dowden (Conservative - Hertsmere)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that local authorities have appropriate powers to re-coup the cost of repairing damage caused by unauthorised Traveller encampments.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Local authorities have extensive powers to deal with unauthorised encampments, and Travellers can be ordered by a court to pay the court costs of the claim. We signalled our intention to issue a consultation on what more can be done to improve the effectiveness of enforcement powers, and will consider all suggestions carefully.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of ending the automatic entitlement to housing benefit for 18 to 21 year olds on the effectiveness of the measures in clauses 4 and 5 of the Homelessness Reduction Bill.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The ending of automatic entitlement to Universal Credit housing cost will only affect out of work claimants under new claims to Universal Credit in Full Service areas. Claimants on Housing Benefit will be unaffected.
The aims of the policy are to stop young people slipping straight into a life on benefits, and to ensure there is parity and fairness between employed young people who may not be able to afford to leave the family home and unemployed young people who, with the aid of out of work benefits, can.
However, Government recognises that some young people cannot remain living at home which is why the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Communities and Local Government have worked together with a wide range of stakeholders to develop a fair and robust set of exemptions to protect the most vulnerable, including young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
These include exemptions for young people in temporary accommodation and for those where it is inappropriate to live with their parents. Young people placed in supported housing, which is often used by local authorities to prevent or relieve homelessness, are not affected by this measure because they receive housing benefit. The detail of the funding arrangements for supported housing from 2019-20 onwards are still being worked through but we are very mindful of the needs of providers and the vulnerable young people they support.
The Government’s intention is that young people who cannot return to the family home can get help with housing costs quickly and easily and we will ensure Jobcentres and Service Centres have the guidance they need to make that happen. This will include them taking into account third party evidence that it is inappropriate for a young person to live with their parents. We know it is important that landlords have confidence in that process so they can continue to let properties to this group. We will be providing messages for landlords on gov.uk and as part of the engagement process in new Universal Credit areas.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will place in the Library the terms of reference for the review of the cost-effectiveness of current energy performance standards mentioned in Fixing our broken housing market, Cm 9352, Paragraph 150.
Answered by Lord Barwell
The Department has commenced cost analysis to underpin the review looking at the cost effectiveness of current energy performance standards for new homes. We will set out more information about our approach in due course.
Asked by: Craig Whittaker (Conservative - Calder Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what guidance his Department issues to local authorities on reviewing the cost of democratic arrangements to ensure that they promote good governance and provide value for money.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The Local Government Transparency Code 2015 requires councils to publish information about how they use their assets, spend money and make decisions. This increases local democratic accountability and makes it easier for local people to contribute to local decision making. Additionally, local authorities are required, through Section 3 of the Local Government Act 1999, to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in how their functions are exercised, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Troubled Families initiative to date; and who conducted that assessment.
Answered by Greg Clark
The Troubled Families initiative aims to turn families around. This means children are back in school for three consecutive terms and there has been significant reductions in youth crime and anti-social behaviour; or an adult in the family is back in work for at least three months. The first Troubled Families Programme is on track to achieve its goal to turn around the lives of 120,000 troubled families across England by May 2015. As of February 2015, over 105,000 families had been turned around. Final results will be published shortly.
The first programme has been subject to an independent national evaluation carried out by a consortium of research organisations, led by Ecorys UK Ltd and comprising Ipsos MORI, The National Institute for Economic and Social Research, Bryson Purdon Research and Clarissa White Research. The evaluation is assessing the impact, process and cost benefit of the programme. In July 2014, an initial report on the characteristics and problems experienced by families in the programme was published titled Understanding Troubled Families. The full final evaluation report is due later this summer.
The new expanded Troubled Families Programme aims to help up to 400,000 additional families achieve significant and sustainable change. It was rolled out nationally in April 2015 and an evaluation of this programme has already begun, delivered by the Office of National Statistics, Ipsos MORI and The Stationary Office. This will build on the first programme's assessments of impact and cost benefit, alongside a programme of qualitative research with local authorities and families to understand if and how services have adapted to work more effectively with families and those families' experiences of services.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what criteria his Department uses to assess the effectiveness of the Troubled Families initiative in individual local authority areas.
Answered by Greg Clark
The Troubled Families initiative aims to turn families around. This means children are back in school for three consecutive terms and there has been significant reductions in youth crime and anti-social behaviour; or an adult in the family is back in work for at least three months. The first Troubled Families Programme is on track to achieve its goal to turn around the lives of 120,000 troubled families across England by May 2015. As of February 2015, over 105,000 families had been turned around. Final results will be published shortly.
The first programme has been subject to an independent national evaluation carried out by a consortium of research organisations, led by Ecorys UK Ltd and comprising Ipsos MORI, The National Institute for Economic and Social Research, Bryson Purdon Research and Clarissa White Research. The evaluation is assessing the impact, process and cost benefit of the programme. In July 2014, an initial report on the characteristics and problems experienced by families in the programme was published titled Understanding Troubled Families. The full final evaluation report is due later this summer.
The new expanded Troubled Families Programme aims to help up to 400,000 additional families achieve significant and sustainable change. It was rolled out nationally in April 2015 and an evaluation of this programme has already begun, delivered by the Office of National Statistics, Ipsos MORI and The Stationary Office. This will build on the first programme's assessments of impact and cost benefit, alongside a programme of qualitative research with local authorities and families to understand if and how services have adapted to work more effectively with families and those families' experiences of services.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 10 June 2015 to Question 1256, how much of the £230 million savings came from (a) receipts from public land, (b) reducing contingencies in capital budgets and (c) the European Regional Development Programme; and from which budgets and programmes contingency savings were made in (i) capital budgets and (ii) the European Regional Development Programme.
Answered by Mark Francois
As part of the Main Estimates process the Department (and other Government Departments) will shortly be publishing a full breakdown of its 2015/16 budgets, with an accompanying Explanatory Memorandum to be submitted to the CLG Select Committee.
The £230 million savings are broken down as follows:
- £75 million of resource contingency reductions (including contingency on the European Regional Development Programme);
- £100 million from the over achievement of capital receipts from the sale of public land to support housing development; and
- £55 million of capital contingency reductions.
The savings do not impact materially on any existing commitments or delivery targets.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to the HM Treasury press release, Chancellor announces £4.5 billion of measures to bring down debt, published on 4 June 2015, what efficiency savings his Department plans to make to achieve reductions of £230 million in its budget.
Answered by Mark Francois
I refer the hon. Member to my answer to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) of 10 June, PQ 1256
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the savings to his Department from the Q&A system in the (a) 12 months and (b) five years since 4 June 2014; what additional ICT systems or improvements to existing systems his Department has introduced or plans to introduce that would not have been feasible without the Q&A system; and what assessment he has made of the extent to which the system has made it easier to answer questions from hon. Members on time.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The establishment of the House’s new Q&A system for processing Parliamentary Questions overlapped with the introduction of a new IT system within DCLG, which covers correspondence and Freedom of Information requests as well as Parliamentary Questions. This uses an ‘off-the-shelf’ package; this involved considerably less cost than would have been the case with development of a bespoke system.
Our system has been developed to enable electronic transfer of questions and answers between the two systems. Both systems offer some opportunities for speeding up processing and improved monitoring facilities. The most immediate impact of the introduction of the Q&A system has been the ending of the need to subscribe to the daily House of Commons question feed service provided by The Stationary Office. This saves around £5,000 a year.
The Department’s system has been in use since the beginning of September and work is continuing to develop its configuration to improve the way parliamentary questions are handled. When the new system has bedded in we will review processing arrangements to assess their effectiveness and explore whether further improvements can be made.
It will be for the Procedure Committee to evaluate the effectiveness of the new system in improving performance when it assesses the evidence following the end of the session.