David Cameron calls poor families "neighbours from hell"

[Himalaya]

Sorry this isn't quite 'in the news' as it is a couple of weeks old. Apologies if it has already been done.

Last year David Cameroon gave a speech on "troubled families".

"That?s why today, I want to talk about troubled families.Let me be clear what I mean by this phrase. Officialdom might call them ?families with multiple disadvantages?. Some in the press might call them ?neighbours from hell?. Whatever you call them, we?ve known for years that a relatively small number of families are the source of a large proportion of the problems in society. Drug addiction. Alcohol abuse. Crime. A culture of disruption and irresponsibility that cascades through generations.We?ve always known that these families cost an extraordinary amount of money??but now we?ve come up the actual figures. Last year the state spent an estimated £9 billion on just 120,000 families?"

As this blog points out DC was very explicit in saying that these 120,000 families cause "disruption and irresponsibility" and "a large proportion of the problems in society".

So who are these families? It turns out that they are identified in the official statistics as families that satisfy 5 of the following 7 criteria:

a) no parent in work
b) poor quality housing,
c) no parent with qualifications,
d) mother with mental health problems
e) one parent with longstanding disability/illness
f) family has low income,
g) Family cannot afford some food/clothing items

Nothing to do with disruption, irresponsibility, crime, drug addiction or alcohol abuse there at all. Plenty of people who are just poor, or fallen on hard times.

WTF?

It doesn't need anything in it's place. That service is already in exsistance, in the form of targeted services via different sources. If the multi-agency way of working has been found at fault, then that needs to be strengthend. At one time SW would carry out the assessment, then it went to family support, but they are now being cut, so he isn't saying who will do it.

Most of the diect work groups that target non attenders at school etc have already been cut, the schools don't have the budgets.

The services when identified cannot be plucked out of thin air, they need solid regular investment. Local government does not have the funds to put 60% in.

This is what DC wants, less spent out of social care budget, blame the councils if they fail, what you will find is that all of the poorer councils will be controled by Labour, so they will geyt the blame, not the lack of investment.

It sounds good, but is isn't saying what the difference is between what he is proposing and what is already in place, or how it will be managed.

I think it's more that people who tick those boxes are, by definition, not wealthy, it's hard to earn much with a disability or mental health issue or few qualifications.

Such people sometimes don't have much of an investment in society, or much to keep them busy, so they can get in to all sorts of things that are bad for themselves and society in general. It certainly doesn't mean that all of them will or that all of it is their fault. Some people choose to live that way though and it would be better for everyone if they didn't. By identifying those criteria it makes it possible to spot at risk families and help in a targeted way, so that they can have a more fulfilling life if they choose to.

All the Children's Centres are concentrating on is the contact between parents, children and siblings and this will rise because more children are being removed.

So where will these workers come from? because there are no positions being advertised, no extra staff being taken on.

The LA knows who these families are and a plan will be already inplace, but that plan is not going ahead at the moment because of the services closing. DC has put a stop on everything.

It isn't going to happen via SW's, whois going to do this? Are there going tobe time frames? etc

They have already been identified, and the services that are being targeted at them are being cut.

So closing community activities, capping benefits/rent, under invested services, including Mental Health, less donations to charities, so they have to cut back on support services and cutting social care staff across the board is going to help how?

Where exactly is £448 million going to be spent? Why not just properly invest in the services that were there?

How is it going to benefit families to have to move because their rent willno longer be covered by benefits? How willit benefit anyone, the single man could be a lifeline for his depressed single mother sister and a father figure to his DN's, but now he has to move away.

Happy- out of work people prop up alot of these failing services in the form of being carers or voluntary workers, so don't be so quick to say that they don't have anything to keep them busy.

I used to put community care packages together and if it wasn't for the neighbours and the sense of community, these packages would never have worked, we could not afford for everone to be in paid employment.

In my city, particulary Toxteth, the community turned themselves around despite the tory government of the time, the same happened across Manchester.

I think what most of us would see as a failing family and DC are two completely different things.

Thanks for this thread which I have found very useful.

My own LA has been told a precise number of 'troubled families' it allegedly has. I was asking about the criteria as recently as Monday, and was told these were probably the most 'expensive families,' although no-one was quite sure.