The county council propose to "cut down the red tape" with a new, innovative plan that will improve the lives of vulnerable families in Hertfordshire.

Hertfordshire County Council has been awarded £4.86 million grant to put towards children's social care. It is the highest grant to be given to local authorities in the UK from the government's Children's Social Care Innovative Programme.

The money will fund a new project, which will focus on the highest-risk children and families in the county. The aim is to keep more of those families together safely and improve the children's health and educational outcomes, as well as reducing the physical and emotional harm in families.

Richard Roberts, cabinet member for children's services, said: "Our pioneering new approach will cut down on red tape and free up our social workers to spend more time with families.

"We will also be working closely with our partners to ensure vulnerable families will get all the help the need, when they need it."

The county council believe the new project is necessary, in order to address concerns about the specialisation of adult and children care services, which has resulted in some families not being as well supported as they should be. This in turn has led to higher levels of child protection referrals, meaning more children were going into care.

Another factor, which the county council said led to the proposal of this new project was the findings of the Government commissioned Munro Review of Child Protection.

The review found that social workers spend an estimated 80 per cent of their time on administrative functions, leaving only a small amount of time to work directly with families.

The grant will enable the council to extend the work of the safeguarding teams across the county.

They will be joined by community psychiatric nurses and domestic abuse specialists, who will be trained to support families in new ways.

The safeguarding teams will also work alongside schools, children's centres, health visitors, police officers and the voluntary sector to ensure that children have the opportunity to live in a caring home, where they can thrive and prosper.

To help reduce the time spent on administration, the staff will start to use an electronic workbook to record and evidence assessments, which the county council hope will eventually replace the current system of case notes, chronologies and reports, which are often repetitive and time-consuming.

Mr Robert added: "This grant is the result of the hard work of staff and crucially, our partners in health and the police and reflects the government’s faith in our innovative plan to improve the health, education and wellbeing of more than 1,000 of our highest risk children and families.

"I am delighted that we have received this money to help us press ahead with our plans, which will give hundreds of children a better start in life. We hope it will become a model for other areas of the country to follow."