Why exactly should [victims' commissioner] Louise Casey's new task force tackling the '120,000 problem families' report to DCLG secretary, Eric Pickles, rather than, to say, the education secretary, Michael Gove; works and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith; home secretary, Theresa May; or even Francis Maude, at the Cabinet Office?

The answer is because while their problems are cross-cutting and inter-departmental, the 120,000 families issue is regarded by mandarins as part of the community budget pilots programme – addressing family recovery – which itself is seen as a DCLG initiative.