The big lie : 120,000 families who cost £9 billion a year

[TalkinPeace2]

There is no empirical evidence that these families or this amount exist.
Why is the government putting so much emphasis on it?

But thats what the tory's are doing [confuse]

I wonder what goes on in the fevered imaginings of some people reading those criteria?
What must hey think those families are like?
The ones that meet 5 out of 7

Me cooking dinner for my well fed, cared for children, just in from work, whilst their dad is out working evenings.
But we are still a problem because of our lack of qualifications, MH problems (sorry about that, must try and buck up. My DD is dead but suck it up love), my OH's long term disability and the fact we can't always afford stuff.

What a load of utter bollocks

Criteria 1 : That's any retired household then - all those lucky sods on pensions.
Criteria 2 : The housebuilders are sitting on 400,000 plots with planning permission, just to keep their profits up on new builds
Criteria 3 : And that is likely to be the fault of meddling education secretaries or, define qualification as IMHO City & Guilds are pretty useful.
Criteria 4 : She's at home with kids - no wonder she's stressed, but medicalising tiredeness will not solve it
Criteria 5 : Not a lot people can do about that so why blame them for it
Criteria 6 : Income below 60% of median. Well DUH, somebody has to be below average its called statistics
Criteria 7 : I cannot afford to darken the door of Hollister or have champagne every night. Uh Oh.

We live next door to a problem family.

They have four dogs which they leave to bark for hours at a time. The dogs also shit everywhere and they don't clean it up.

They have parties about once a week and in the summer they can be two-day affairs which spill out onto the street in the early hours. The police are often called but it makes no difference.

Drug dealers call at the house at all times - sometimes they knock on our door by mistake. Bit scary at 1am when you're alone with a baby.

If you attempt to ask them nicely to keep it down they just tell you to 'fuck off'

They regularly fly-tip crap out on the street and have screaming, drunken rows in the garden or road.

Right now my walls are vibrating with the noise from the bass of their stereo.

I fucking hate them. They make so many lives a misery.

I doubt they made it onto Mr Pickle's list though - since they both work in advertising and earn about £300k a year.

Poor you Nancy :(
What makes it worse is that if they got nicked thy would also be more likely to get away with a lighter punishment than less affluent problem families.
Money talks Innit?

They get fined all the time - £500 here or there means nothing to them though.

Bloody hell Josephine, I pity the poor feckless people you work with, you obviously have little empathy for them! You do seem quite ignorant too. I have no doubt that perhaps some of those families have made bad choices but then there are manymore who are in a bad situation through no fault of their own.

I meet a few of those criteria, I am on benefits although I do work six hours a week in a job that I hate. And yes its declared before I get acused of benefit fraud!

I had all my four children when I was in a steady relationship, working, I was even a house owner at one point but due to relationship breakdown which involved domestic abuse and a child who is disable d my life is unrecognizable to what I had.

You really do not have a clue. I hope you never find yourself down on your luck, trust me its no picnic

sorry to hear that Nancy. The problem family in our street with booming parties both work. Teacher and a nurse and own their own house which is in good repair.

Yet Pickles does not mention anti-social behaviour, criminal convictions, drug taking or boozing as 'problem families'.

I think that goes without saying! This about addressing the root causes, instead of the symptoms.

How do you deal with the root causes of disability?

root causes are not poverty (scruffy clothes or house) per se. I grew up on an estate in poverty and if you misbehaved someone would tell your mum and you'd be punished. There was real community spirit. People helped each other.
Or disability.
Or losing your job.

Why are people so disengaged with society and community they take and do not give? Live for now? Worship vacuous celebrities and dont give a crap how their behaviour affects others? And this not caring about others has little to do with whether you have a job or money. You see it in the rich end of society (Bullingdon club behaviour. They didnt give a shit about businesses they ruined and staff they upset.). too.

"This about addressing the root causes"

The root cause is structural, anyone who has a basic knowledge of social policy and the pro's and con's of the Welfare State concept that we adopted long ago, also global monetary/business policies .

This can only be changed at Government level and not by what is being propossed.

"Why are people so disengaged with society and community they take and do not give"

the political ethos of Thatcher's government told us that there was no such thing as society,only individuals. All morality went out of the window as long as money was being made.

Thatcher never said anything of the sort. Read her speech again. Lefties always like to bring up the "there is no such thing as society" quote but in context what she said makes perfect sense. Society is made up of individuals. Individuals cannot blame "society" for problems that are of their own making.

Kal, Birds,

Also, I guess what the residents where I live want to know is - what penalties are there for the private landlords making money out of the tenancies? Just because they businessmen and businesswomen, surely that does not mean that they can fob off the expensive problems they create onto residents, the council, the tax payer?

The state of some of these properties is horrible.

When do landlords start to take some responsibility? I'm talking about landlords who year after year let to families or groups of adults and fail to try to exert any kind of control over behaviour or living conditions whatsoever. They just take the housing benefit.

verity bloody good questions.

The 12,000 figure is total bollocks.

The Government's description of the 12,000 These families are characterised by there being no adult in the family working, children not being in school and family members being involved in crime and anti-social behaviour.

Completely different criteria from the ones in the original report (which was written when?). The government have picked up on this number (based on meeting 5 out of the 7 criteria) and now given their own description which is completely different. So different criteria; same number how does that work? Is it because someone's just made it up?

Utter, utter bollocks.

sheepsgomeeping are you saying that Josephine CD has a job that doesnt fit with her attitude.
I have seen this attitude from people who work in these sectors before. There was a lady who i had a disagreement with on facebook who said some really unpleasant things about single parents.
She talked about the fact that they "opened their legs to all and sundry" and in the next breath said that "i have to dry the tears of "women like this" every day.
This was after a womens celebrity weekly had printed a benefit bashing article.

So it would seem that so called proffesionals are not immune to a. believing everything they read and b. worshipping at the altar of celebrity.
I was absolutely disgusted at this womans attitude considering the job that she claimed to have.

I am genuinely confused by this.

The criteria listed are about being poor and having a disability.

Is it difficult to identify problem families? I would have thought a 'problem family' would be a family where, for instance, more than one family member has been prosecuted for a crime like theft or drug dealing, there are regular complaints to police about social order problems, they are diffcult to house because they break the terms of their council tenancy etc. etc.

What does disability have to do with it?

Merry you are right to be confused.
Unfortunately this goverment have been demonising disabled people since before they won the election.
The fact that they havent even tried to hide that they see disability as a problem shows how sucessful their campaign has been.

I saw the vile Peter Hitchins (Mail on Sunday) on Questiontime last night talking about the 'Troubled Families' programme. He blames 'fatherlessness'.

The Tory Minister Grant Shapps did nothing to stop him, to contradict him, or correct him.

These people are bloody insane.

Same. Old. Tories.

there's plenty of people who have jobs that do not suit their attitudes. I've heard both a paid Carer and an SN teacher say disabled children shouldnt be allowed to be born.
Yuck.

Hmm, im half and half with this. On one hand I was brought up by a (sometimes) single mother, ea stepfather, all on benefits, definitely fit 5 of the criteria. All my siblings and myself have turned into law abiding working adults.

On the other hand even I would admit that there are problem families out there, and while they are probably a minority, we are not speaking hundreds, more like thousands. And I would bet that more problem families fit these criteria than not.