Presentation delivered by Professor Ruth Levitas at an event at Durham University on 15th March 2013

1. Troubled families:
misrepresenting poverty
Durham 15 March 2013
Ruth Levitas
University of Bristol

3. Poverty and Social Exclusion in the
UK
Main Objectives
• To improve the measurement of poverty,
deprivation, social exclusion and standard of
living
• To assess changes in poverty and social
exclusion in the UK
• To conduct policy-relevant analyses of poverty
and social exclusion
website: www.poverty.ac.uk

4. PSE 2012: main questions
• What are the best methods for measuring
poverty, deprivation, social exclusion and
standard of living?
• How are the different dimensions of poverty,
deprivation and social exclusion related?
• What is the current extent and nature of poverty
and how has it changed?
• What policies best address these problems?

5. Troubled families or ‘neighbours
from hell’
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…that is
around £75,000 per family.
David Cameron December 2011

6. Troubled families cause trouble
‘120,000 families are a big problem for this country. If you
live near one you know very well who they are. And local
services like police, health and schools also know who
they are, because they spend a disproportionate amount
of time and money dealing with them. These families are
both troubled and causing trouble. We want to get to the
bottom of their problems and resolve them – for their
own good, and for the good of their communities.
Councils will now be asked to look to identify actual
families, based on factors such as truanting, antisocial
behaviour and cost to public services.’
Eric Pickles

7. Social Justice Strategy
‘the Government recently identified a group
of 120,000 troubled families whose lives
are so chaotic they cost the Government
some £9 billion in the last year alone’.
Iain Duncan Smith, Foreword,
Department for Work and Pensions (2012)
Social Justice: transforming lives,

8. Social Justice Strategy
‘we estimate that there are 120,000 families living
particularly troubled and chaotic lives. These
families are the subject of significant
government intervention – with some £9 billion
spent on this particular group in the last year
alone – and can cause serious problems for
their local communities through crime and
antisocial behaviour.’
Department for Work and Pensions (2012) Social
Justice: transforming lives,

9. Troubled Families Programme
Aimed at households that:
• Are involved in crime and anti-social
behaviour;
• Have children not in school;
• Have an adult on out-of-work benefits;
• Cause high costs to the public purse.

10. Troubled Families Programme
• Estimated 120,000 families distributed to
Local Authorities as target figures.
• £4000 of estimated £10,000 cost per
family for ‘turning family round’

11. Issues
• Numbers: the 120,000
• Costs: the £9 billion
• Ethics: the Casey Report
• Numbers: poverty and inequality

12. 120,000 troubled families?
• No parent in the family is in work;
• Family lives in overcrowded housing;
• No parent has any qualifications;
• Mother has mental health problems;
• At least one parent has a long-standing limiting
illness, disability or infirmity;
• Family has low income (below 60% of median
income);
• Family cannot afford a number of food and
clothing items.

13. Issues
• Numbers: the 120,000
• Costs: the £9 billion
• Ethics: the Casey Report
• Numbers: poverty and inequality

14. Those £9bn pounds …

15. The Lies we tell Ourselves
This is because we have a culture which
allows us to tell lies in public life.
Paul Morrison, Methodist Church

16. Issues
• Numbers: the 120,000
• Costs: the £9 billion
• Ethics: the Casey Report
• Numbers: poverty and inequality

17. The Casey Report: Listening to
Troubled Families
• Large families – especially women with
children with different fathers.
• Informed consent
• Is it research?

18. (NOT) Listening to Troubled
Families
‘Many have large families and keep having children, often
with different fathers, even if they are struggling to cope
with the children they already have’.
‘It's not just that you are a family and your kids are
antisocial, and it's not just that you started having five to
10 children from the age of 16. It's every single problem
going ... they are responsible for a good number of them
and some of [the families] feel they don't need help from
anyone’.
Louise Casey

19. (NOT) Listening to Troubled
Families
The most striking common theme that families described
was the history of sexual and physical abuse, often going
back generations; the involvement of the care system in
the lives of both parents and their children, parents
having children very young, those parents being involved
in violent relationships, and the children going on to have
behavioural problems, leading to exclusion from school,
anti-social behaviour and crime. … Violence appears in
many cases to be endemic – not just domestic violence
between parents but violence between siblings, between
parent and child, outside the house and inside the
house.
Louise Casey

20. Issues
• Numbers: the 120,000
• Costs: the £9 billion
• Ethics: the Casey Report
• Numbers: poverty and inequality

21. 120,000 troubled families?
• No parent in the family is in work;
• Family lives in overcrowded housing;
• No parent has any qualifications;
• Mother has mental health problems;
• At least one parent has a long-standing limiting
illness, disability or infirmity;
• Family has low income (below 60% of median
income);
• Family cannot afford a number of food and
clothing items.

22. Estimating Trends
In the Eye of the Storm: Britain’s forgotten
children and families
A research report for Action for Children,
The Children’s Society and NSPCC
Howard Reed, Landman Economics,
June 2012

23. In the Eye of the Storm 1
Between 2008 and 2015 it is estimated that the number of families with
five or more vulnerabilities will increase from 130,000 to 150,000 –
an increase of just under 15 percent.
The number of children living in families with five or more vulnerabilities
is set to rise by 55,000 to 365,000, an increase of around 17
percent.
Taking a slightly wider definition of vulnerability, the number of children
living in families with four or more vulnerabilities is set to rise from
885,000 in 2008 to just over one million by 2010, an increase of 13
percent.
Particularly worrying is the projected increase in the number of
children living in extremely vulnerable families – families with six or
seven different risk factors. Although currently fewer than 50,000,
the number of children living in extremely vulnerable families is set
to almost double by 2015, to 96,000.
Howard Reed, June 2012

24. In the Eye of the Storm 2
Finally, combining the changes to the tax and benefit
system with the other spending cuts, families with five or
more vulnerabilities lose approximately £3,000 per year
(in April 2012 prices) from the overall fiscal ‘package’ by
2015 compared to 2010. This represents a decrease in
total living standards (net income plus the value of public
services received) of around 7 percent. Even if the £448
million per year allocated to “troubled” families by the
Government in 2011 were targeted solely on families
with five or more vulnerabilities using the Cabinet
Office’s original definition, the money allocated per family
would only just offset the losses which vulnerable
families are suffering from the rest of the fiscal package.
Howard Reed, 2012

25. In the Eye of the Storm 3
Putting all of this together, it is clear that by 2015 there will
be significantly more vulnerable families than there were
in 2010. They will be significantly worse off in terms of
disposable income than they were in 2010 and the public
spending cuts will have hit them particularly hard
compared with the population at large. Furthermore, the
number of children living in families with five or more
vulnerabilities is predicted to increase by around 17
percent and the number of extremely vulnerable children
(in families with six or seven vulnerabilities) will almost
double. On this reading of the situation, the outlook for
vulnerable families over the next three years – and
beyond – should be of major concern to policymakers.
Howard Reed, 2012

27. Is austerity really necessary?

28. The viral video
New Economics Foundation
www.nef.org.uk

29. More Information
visit www.poverty.ac.uk
watch the documentary on ITV
7.30 March 28