Supporting "Troubled Families" in Greater Manchester, England

Troubled Families in Greater Manchester is a sub-regional implementation of a highly controversial national programme in England intended to offer joined-up services targeted at families representing the highest costs to the... [ view full abstract ]

Troubled Families in Greater Manchester is a sub-regional implementation of a highly controversial national programme in England intended to offer joined-up services targeted at families representing the highest costs to the public purse. The underpinning principles of Troubled Families include early intervention with children and sustained employment for parents. The funding mechanism is known as Payment by Results (PbR), under which local authorities are paid partly through submitting data to demonstrate that they have met outcomes. In Greater Manchester (which consists of 10 boroughs), senior managers see the programme as a catalyst to more general public service reform, especially more integrated working across the various services provided directly by the boroughs and contracted to external suppliers including social economy organizations. Their goal is “a new relationship between public services and citizens, communities and businesses that enables shared decision making, democratic accountability and voice, genuine co-production and joint delivery of services”. The evaluation undertaken for INNOSI shows that, to some extent, the Troubled Families programme in Greater Manchester has indeed supported a shift towards service integration as intended. There have been significant advances in better communication and information sharing, despite IT systems not being up to date. Another success is that family plans are co-produced, taking the families’ perspectives into account. The Payment-by-result element is used in different ways to pay for different things across Greater Manchester, depending on the individual borough’s local context. Some but not all boroughs pass on a proportion of the PbR to commissioned services. For some senior managers, PbR is a means to set priorities, incentivise partners and help ensure a common understanding of expected outcomes; they see this as especially welcome within a multi-agency partnership where each organisation may have its own agenda. Other managers and front-line staff, in contrast, claim that PbR can make collaboration more difficult. There was evidence that funding in this way could be a source of tension associated with power dynamics between different services and sectors. It was not, therefore, supportive of the desired new and positive relationship between public services, communities, individuals and enterprises.