THE lives of 1,721 troubled families in Lancashire have been turned around, according to the latest government figures.

Councils’ dedicated troubled families teams are now intensively working with 99 per cent of households in England identified as having multiple problems, including high levels of truancy, youth crime, anti-social behaviour and worklessness, and would otherwise cost taxpayers an estimated £75,000 per year.

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This means that children are back in school where they had previously been persistently absent; that levels of youth crime and anti-social behaviour have been significantly reduced across the family; or that an adult in the home has moved off benefits and into work for three consecutive months or more.

In Blackburn with Darwen, the number of turned around families by the end of August was 279 out of 465 families identified. Lancashire had a total of 3,610 families identified as hardest-hit up to September this year.

In Lancashire the funding is used to run the county council’s Working Together With Families pro-gramme.

County councillor Matthew Tomlinson, cabinet member for children, young people and schools, said: “The latest figures for families helped under the government's Troubled Families programme are extremely encouraging.

“In Lancashire, this work falls within our Working Together With Families programme, which is part of a wider approach to help families deal with problems before they escalate.”