A county councillor has claimed organisations involved in a ground-breaking government scheme to help some of Kent's most troubled families might be "cherry picking" the easiest ones to achieve results.

The government scheme operates on a "payment by results" basis, with councils receiving up to 40% of the costs of dealing with disadvantaged families when the scheme succeeds.

Success is measured by "observable improvements" such as lower levels of anti-social behaviour, less offending and fewer school exclusions of the families involved.

Kent has a target of helping 2,560 such "hard to reach" families between now and 2015 and has already been praised for the success of its work on the programme, which also aims to radically reduce the costs to the public purse of supporting them.

However, Liberal Democrat county councillor Trudy Dean said that while she was pleased with what had been achieved so far, some social workers had told her of their concerns over "cherry picking".

She said the scheme had demonstrated what could be done, but expressed concerns over the approach of some of the companies involved.

"Speaking to some of the practitioners, I was disappointed to hear there are some parts of Kent where the programme has still not started.

"I was very unhappy to hear that some of the private companies being used to perform this work may very well be cherry picking the cases.

"Some of the social workers spoke to me about reports to them that these companies are effectively dumping these families who do not want engage in the programme rather than pursue them," she told a council meeting.

Cllr Mike Hill (Con), the cabinet member for communities, which oversees the programme, said he was unaware of problems and said the initiative was producing results.

He said: "As far as I am concerned, we are not turning anyone away. There is no question of cherry picking and the programme is working very well. We are very pleased with the way that it is going. We have been praised by the Department for Communities and Local Government."

The programme involves different parts of the public sector joining forces to help. The county council is working alongside district and borough councils, JobCentre Plus, the police and probation services, as well as the NHS.