Commentary on provisions of Act Section 3: Troubled Families Programme
This section requires the Secretary of State to prepare a report on progress made by families who receive support as part of the Troubled Families Programme. This report will be based on information from the programme's national evaluation and the payment by results achieved by local authorities.
	Currently, to be eligible for support as part of the programme, families must have at least two of the six problems laid out in the programme's Financial Framework and have been prioritised for inclusion by the local authority on the basis that they are families who are likely to benefit from an integrated, whole family approach, and are the families who result in the highest costs to the public purse. Local authorities will typically work in partnership with a range of local public service providers, including those in the voluntary and community sector, to offer the necessary services to their local troubled families. This support aims to achieve significant and sustained progress across each family, compared with all the family members' problems at the point of engagement with the programme; and to move adults in these families off benefits and into continuous employment.
	The progress report is to be prepared by the Secretary of State before the end of each financial year and laid before Parliament.
	The operating terms of the Troubled Families Programme may change over the lifetime of the programme. To accommodate this, the Secretary of State is required to issue a notice specifying the measures which the Secretary of State will report against before the start of each financial year.