Troubled families and £1bn wasted on vanity of politicians

THE past few months have been quite eventful in our household. My son has started at a new school, my daughter finally got her ears pierced — and I have been decluttering like mad in anticipation of moving home.

Oh, and my husband lost his job as Lord Chancellor, withdrawing from front-line politics for the foreseeable future.

Part of me is sad, of course, not least because his ceremonial robes were terrific. But part of me is secretly rather relieved.

Not that I don’t wish he had been given the chance to see through his proposed prison reforms or hope that some day he will return to the fray. It’s just that, however much of a privilege it may be, high office takes its toll, and it’s nice — and absolutely necessary — to have a break from it all.

Being a member of Her Majesty’s Government is a bit like giving birth. You can read as many books as you like on the subject, plan everything down to the last detail, but until you’ve actually felt that weight of responsibility on your shoulders, it is impossible to truly understand the difficulties you face.

As a third-party observer, I lost count of the number of times Michael would walk through the door on the cusp of midnight in a state of advanced agitation. And nine times out of ten, it would not be out of exhaustion (the man has an uncanny energy when it comes to policy submissions), but something far more energy-sapping: frustration.

FrustrAtION at the way the Civil service seemed determined to thwart reform at every turn; frustration at the sycophancy and spin surrounding the prime minister; frustration at the lack of rigour in policy-making; frustration at the endless games that meant ministers and officials were constantly putting their own needs before those of the electorate.

And most of all, frustration at the Nick Clegg-style ‘look-at-me, aren’t I virtuous’ culture that pervades Westminster and the ‘does my policy look big in this?’ attitude.

A perfect example of this was the so-called troubled Families Programme. Conceived as a response to the 2011 riots, it was intended to tackle the estimated 120,000 households suffering unemployment, truancy and social problems, deemed to be at the root of the country’s social unrest.

the aim was turn round these families’ fortunes and to stop their children repeating the cycle of disadvantage.

Initially, £480million of taxpayers’ money was allocated to the project, and then a further £900 million.

It was precisely the kind of initiative that drove my husband nuts: headline-driven, poorly conceived and hastily implemented.

Indeed, he made no bones about his views. In David Laws’s book, Coalition, the former Lib Dem minister recalls that ‘the Education secretary [Michael Gove] was a vocal critic of the distinctively crossdepartmental troubled Families initiative, even though it was one of the prime minister’s great policy passions. When he did attend meetings on this issue, he would launch strong attacks on Louise Casey, the troubled Families unit boss.’

the book describes such exchanges in gleeful detail. But however irritating Michael’s criticism must have seemed (and he can be very irritating), he now stands vindicated.

Yesterday, the National Institute of Economic and social research issued a report concluding that the troubled Families unit had failed. It had, the think-tank said, ‘no measurable effect on school attendance, employment or behaviour’.

All that money (£1.4billion), time and effort — for what? Just so a handful of people could show off at dinner parties and perhaps enjoy a glowing editorial in the Guardian.

Like the controversial charity Kids Company founded by Camila Batmanghelidjh (another bottomless money-pit my husband opposed), the troubled Families Programme was kept going at massive taxpayers’ expense to salve the consciences of politicians cowed by half-baked notions of political correctness.

such people think society’s ills can be resolved by a top-down approach when, in truth, reform is needed from the bottom up in housing, welfare and, crucially, education.

And what about those responsible for this misguided project?

It’s no longer their problem. the wheel has turned and, anyway, they’ve got what they came for — gongs and cashing in on their memoirs.