Introduction

This chapter traces the emergence of the concept of ‘troubled families’, from a single mention in a speech by David Cameron during the early days of the coalition government (Cameron, 2010), through to the establishment of a high profile central government policy with specific criteria for what constitutes a ‘troubled family’ and with 120,000 such ‘troubled families’ identified in local authorities across England. The chapter draws on work by the American political scientist John W. Kingdon (1995) who argued that certain issues moved up the policy agenda as a result of three different process streams – problem recognition; formation and refining of policy proposals; and politics – coming together or ‘coupling’ at key moments.

Kingdon noted that a variety of problems captured the attention of governments and the individuals working within them, representing the first process stream. Often, these problems would come to the attention of policy makers and politicians via focusing events – crises or disasters that ‘reinforce some pre-existing perception of a problem … that was already “in the back of people's minds”’ (Kingdon, 1995: 98). There was also, Kingdon argued, a second stream – a ‘community of specialists – bureaucrats, people in the planning and evaluation and in the budget offices … academics, interest groups, researchers – which concentrates on generating proposals’ (1995: 87, emphasis added), each with ‘their pet ideas or axes to grind’. The third political stream, according to Kingdon, consisted of ‘things like swings in national mood, vagaries of public opinion, election results, changes of administration, shifts in partisan or ideological distributions … and interest group pressure campaigns’. Each of these streams operated largely, but not entirely, independently and came together only infrequently. Kingdon argued that it was the coupling of these streams at such moments or ‘critical times’ that were the key to understanding policy change and agenda setting – ‘A problem is recognized, a solution is available, the political climate makes the time right for change, and the constraints do not prohibit action’ (1995: 88).