The government's £400million "troubled families" programme did not have any "significant or systematic impact" on improving the lives of those it was supposed to turn around, an official report has found.

The report, which was published last night, found that families who were on the programme were no more likely to find jobs, stop claiming benefits or improve the school attendance of their children.

It said: "Our analysis found no impact on these outcomes attributable to the programme, with observed outcomes for the Troubled Families Programme families being very similar to the outcomes for a matched comparison group of families.

"The vast majority of impact estimates were statistically insignificant, with a very small number of positive or negative results.

"The separate analysis using survey data also found no significant or systemic impact on outcomes related to employment, job seeking, school attendance, or anti-social behaviour."