Broken policies

This is one of David Cameron’s top priorities. He said so in a major policy speech after the 2011 summer riots. As a Westminster select committee headed by Sheffield MP Clive Betts has now reported, Ministers initially set aside £448m to help 120,000 high-risk families – presumably after careful calculation of the likely costs.

Yet they now expect local authorities to transform the lives of a further 400,000 families – for just £200m. Furthermore there is no guarantee that funding will continue beyond 2016 and maintain any momentum engineered by local authorities.

There will be some who will question the wisdom of so much money being spent on individuals who contribute so little society. However, this short-sightedness misses the point. Unless the Government acts, these families will become an even bigger drain on the public purse and undermine Iain Duncan Smith’s valiant attempts to overhaul the benefits system with initiatives and incentives that are intended to make work pay.

Yet, as Mr Betts makes clear, councils will be unwilling to invest time and money without long-term assurances about funding – a concern that Mr Cameron needs to address when he next returns to his “broken society” agenda.