A flagship back-to-work scheme for troubled families has been dismissed as a
“catastrophe” after a Government watchdog savaged its failings.
Bungling ministers spent almost £8million trying to find 88,000 people from these families a job - but managed to get just 720 off the dole.
This left taxpayers with a £10,000 bill for each person helped into work on Iain Duncan Smith’s scheme.
The Work and Pensions Secretary had set a target of getting 19,832 on the scheme into work.
But a damning National Audit Office report found the “families with multiple problems” programme was missing this target by 96%.
Under the scheme the Government pays private companies to get those from troubled families off benefits.
But Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of Whitehall’s Public and Commercial Services union, said the poor results also showed that giving work to private firms was “fantastically misguided”.
He said: “It’s difficult to see the DWP programme as anything other than a catastrophe for the vulnerable families who deserve our help but are being let down.
“First with the work programme and now this, private companies are proving themselves incapable of providing the kind of complex, dedicated support necessary, despite the hundreds of millions of pounds of public money being funnelled their way.”
The Government has estimated that troubled families cost taxpayers around £9billion a year.
Some £1billion a year is spent tackling mental health and drug abuse - and a further £8billion on social care, crime fighting and court costs.
Alongside Mr Duncan Smith’s failing scheme to help these families into work, the Department for Communities and Local Government has set up a separate programme to turn around their lives in other ways.
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles launched his “troubled families” programme at the same time as Mr Duncan Smith - with a budget of £448million.
But the National Audit Office said both schemes - designed to help 120,000 families in England - were underperforming.
Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: “These innovative and ambitious programmes are beginning to provide some benefits but elements of both are underperforming.
“This is the result of poor co-ordination between the departments when designing and implementing their programmes and of the risks taken in launching the programmes quickly.”
Mirror
Bungling ministers spent almost £8million trying to find 88,000 people from these families a job - but managed to get just 720 off the dole.
This left taxpayers with a £10,000 bill for each person helped into work on Iain Duncan Smith’s scheme.
The Work and Pensions Secretary had set a target of getting 19,832 on the scheme into work.
But a damning National Audit Office report found the “families with multiple problems” programme was missing this target by 96%.
Under the scheme the Government pays private companies to get those from troubled families off benefits.
But Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of Whitehall’s Public and Commercial Services union, said the poor results also showed that giving work to private firms was “fantastically misguided”.
He said: “It’s difficult to see the DWP programme as anything other than a catastrophe for the vulnerable families who deserve our help but are being let down.
“First with the work programme and now this, private companies are proving themselves incapable of providing the kind of complex, dedicated support necessary, despite the hundreds of millions of pounds of public money being funnelled their way.”
The Government has estimated that troubled families cost taxpayers around £9billion a year.
Some £1billion a year is spent tackling mental health and drug abuse - and a further £8billion on social care, crime fighting and court costs.
Alongside Mr Duncan Smith’s failing scheme to help these families into work, the Department for Communities and Local Government has set up a separate programme to turn around their lives in other ways.
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles launched his “troubled families” programme at the same time as Mr Duncan Smith - with a budget of £448million.
But the National Audit Office said both schemes - designed to help 120,000 families in England - were underperforming.
Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: “These innovative and ambitious programmes are beginning to provide some benefits but elements of both are underperforming.
“This is the result of poor co-ordination between the departments when designing and implementing their programmes and of the risks taken in launching the programmes quickly.”
Mirror
