4 Jul 2013 02:28

Social workers were attacked for being “too nice” by the Government’s troubled families Tsar Louise Casey yesterday.

Ms Casey accused them of “colluding” with parents to make excuses for their children’s behaviour and said they should tell the “honest truth”.

They should also be tougher with colleagues and other professionals like the police, she told a local government conference in Manchester.

Ms Casey runs the troubled families intervention programme, which intensive coaching and support to tackle joblessness, truancy and anti-social behaviour among “high risk” families.

The project received an extra £200million to extend it to a further 400,000 households in last week’s spending review.

Ms Casey said it was already saving cash by getting families back on track and the next stage would be to change the attitude of town hall chiefs and social workers.

“We cannot collude with parents to find excuses for failure. The price paid by their children is too great,” she said.

Ms Casey later said that there was too much talking and not enough action.

“There is a lack of decision making, things are open-ended, there are lots of meetings, lots of discussions, but nothing’s closed down,” she said.

“And some of that is because it’s quite hard to challenge people isn’t it? You are in a partnership meeting and everybody wants to be nice to each other.

“Well I’m saying... I don’t really mind whether you’re nice or not nice. We need to make sure we tackle the problems with the families so if you a not doing your job you need to be challenged on it.

“It’s the same with families who need to be told the honest truth.”