Broken Britain's broken families

An ambitious scheme to tackle Britain's broken families is at the heart of the government's response to this year's riots.

The prime minister is announcing plans to introduce 'troubleshooters' to tackle the UK's 120,000 families.

An extension of Labour's family intervention work, the new measures will seek to tackle antisocial families whose parents are out of work and whose children are out of school.

Family workers will be sent into their homes to address the problems they face in a move the PM claims will make a big difference.

Labour is arguing the coalition's spending cuts will make the job much harder, however.

Politicians are feeling more pressure to respond to August's disorder with concerted action after recent research, Reading The Riots, demonstrated that the looting was not merely the product of straightforward opportunistic criminality.

Labour: Cuts will limit impact of family interventions

LGA: Councils will help improve lives of troubled families

Cameron: It's time to fix Britain's broken families