Ministers alerted over families fund

Ministers set aside £448m to help 120,000 high risk families when the scheme was originally launched but later announced another £200m to extend it to a further 400,000 families.

In a report released yesterday, the Communities and Local Government Committee said the “additional workload is likely to challenge the capacity and resources of local areas”.

Government must keep tabs on the expansion plans and “be prepared to provide more resources if necessary”, MPs warned.

Under the troubled families programme households are assigned a dedicated worker to deal with a whole family on all of its problems, such as ensuring that the children attend school, appointments are met and appropriate services are accessed.

Committee chairman and Sheffield South East MP Clive Betts said: “The work of the troubled families programme is welcome.

“But it will be wasted if the families are abandoned when the programme ends in 2016; 400,000 families were added to the programme in June, but the resources available have not increased proportionally. The Government needs to monitor this situation and must be prepared to provide more resources if necessary.”