An upcoming major review of the UK's child protection services will cut down the bureaucracy surrounding social work jobs to allow them to better help vulnerable families, says the government.

The government has ordered an independent review of child protection and social work in England and Wales, to be carried out by Professor Eileen Munro from the London School of Economics. As well as examining how bureaucracy can be cut from social work, Prof. Munro will consider ways of building links between social workers and outside agencies like the police.

Research by Unison has found that those in a qualified social worker can often spend up to 80% of their time dealing with paperwork.

As part of the review, Prof. Munro will evaluate the success of a pilot in Hackney which has specifically aimed to slash bureaucracy for social workers. Running over the last few years, the pilot has seen Hackney social workers abandon traditional mangement structures and instead work in small units of five people.

A single administrator does the paperwork for each team, one social worker focuses on the child, leaving the others consider the adults needs. According to Prof Munro this system of shared decision making and responsibilities has seen the number of children taken into care drop by about a third.

Speaking at the launch of the review, children's minister Tim Loughton said: "The whole system of child protection has become too much about risk aversion, about ticking boxes, about making sure that various procedure manuals were followed rather than the most important question - is that child safer?"