Agenda item

David Weiss, Kent County Council,

Zena Cooke, Maidstone Borough Council

Overview:

The Troubled Families programme is based on a Payment By Results scheme, which will be front loaded in the first year, with an attachment fee of £3,200 per family and an additional Payment by Result payment of £700 per family. Families are identified through the following criteria; school exclusions, worklessness and crime/antisocial behaviour - families identified will need to meet two out of the three criteria. The Troubled Families programme provides the opportunity to redesign and transform services which support these families, aligning and targeting programmes, particularly around early intervention and prevention work. The Troubled Families programme is supported by a multi-agency governance model.

Troubled Families continues the work that was undertaken as part of Kent’s Community Budgets pilot in 2011. The lessons learnt from these pilots, particularly around the success of intensive family intervention and workforce development and support has been fed into the Troubled Families model with Local Project Boards now set up in each of the Kent districts. Central government estimates a £62–75k saving per family engaged and supported through Troubled Families. 

Kent’s Troubled Families programme has established links with the European Social Fund ‘Progress’ programme being delivered by Skills Training UK across Kent. The Progress programme has been designed to move participants closer to the labour market and could potentially provide the ‘exit strategy’ for those families who are participants of the Kent’s Troubled Families.

The district target for Maidstone is to work with 80 families in Year 1 and indicatively in Year 2, starting April 2013, a target of 81 families.  The latest reconciled number is 69.

Ellie Kershaw has been appointed as the Maidstone based local Project Delivery Manager based at Maidstone Borough Council. Maidstone’s next steps will be to agree the establishment of a Project Board from current local bodies and a Local Operational group supported through an expanded Maidstone Community Safety Unit. There are opportunities to align with other services such as the Kent Integrated Adolescent Support Service being piloted and due to be rolled out across Kent in 2013.

Those families engaged through Troubled Families will be asked to consider/agree to a Family CAF. Families will be allocated a Case Worker to provide a wraparound support service linking in with local service providers. For very intensive families, FIP workers will be utilised and two will be allocated from February 2013.

Discussion - key points:

·  Troubled Families will provide intensive, direct support to families tailored around the key issues e.g. educational attainment, offending, antisocial behaviour etc.

·  Most families will have issues they want help with, for example, social housing, help with children and alcohol problems. The FIP workers will trigger a good relationship with each family. Inherent issues such as debt, for example, rental arrears and money management will also be addressed. 

·  Each district will identify different needs and issues to support their approach to Troubled Families in their localities. Through lessons learnt from the pilot projects, Troubled Families will encourage a positive and innovative use of public money to support the identified families through a multi-agency, team around the family concept.

·  There is the potential to penalise those families who do not engage. Family Liaison Officers who are in schools supporting families on a daily basis will be engaged and utilised.

·  A conversation will need to take place with frontline practitioners to review the 69 families identified in Maidstone and help facilitate discussions to get them nearer to supporting themselves and into employment.

·  The Troubled Families outcomes and evaluation model will provide a framework to enable results to be monitored e.g. school exclusions, criminal justice and employment performance.

·  Identification of the 69 families has been completed and meetings taken place with frontline practitioner agencies e.g. Kent Police and Youth Offending Service to build case profiles. MBC’s recently appointed Skills and Employability Co-ordinator will be overseeing a needs database and compare data against families to ensure there is a complete case history.

·  Next steps will be to hold the first meeting of the Project Board and Operational Group. Work will start to identify the first 10 families, which will be presented to the Project Board for consideration and approval. Each family will need to be carefully considered and profiled, which will take time, but it is essential the FIP workers understand the existing issues, concerns (e.g. serious level of criminality) and service engagement already existing around each family member.

Recommendation:

The Maidstone Locality Board were asked to;

·  Approve the proposed governance arrangements

·  Consider progress updates and recommendations from the Project Board – at each Board meeting

·  Approve the Local project plan (a ‘live working document’) - March 2013

·  Approve the outcomes and evaluation framework – March 2013

Decisions:
The Maidstone Locality Board approved the recommendations set out above.