MORE than 2,000 problem families across Southampton and Hampshire will be targeted by council “trouble shooters” to help them turn their lives around.

David Cameron yesterday pledged £448m to send workers into the most chaotic households which, he said, were costing taxpayers £9bn every year.

But cash-strapped councils, which have already had their budgets for child support slashed, are being told to find 60 per cent of the funding.

Questions were raised about whether the £1bn total package would be anywhere near enough to reach the 120,000 families identified in a study under the previous Government that looked at truancy, crime and antisocial behaviour and unemployment.

It said there were 685 “troubled families”

in Southampton, and 1,590 in the Hampshire County Council area.

Under the Government’s plans, each family would be given a support worker rather than a string of officials who “treat the symptom, not the cause.”

So-called family intervention projects were launched under the previous Labour government to try and target households causing the most problems.

Some were scaled back when the Con/Lib Dem coalition removed protection for family intervention schemes, leaving them exposed to council cuts.

Now the scheme is being launched with the promise of reaching 120,000 “troubled families” by the end of this Parliament in 2015.

Mr Cameron said: “Last year, the state spent an estimated £9bn on just 120,000 families, around £75,000 per family. Our heart tells us we can’t just stand by while people live these lives and cause others so much misery. Our head tells us we can’t afford to keep footing the monumental bills for social failure. So we have got to take action to turn troubled families around.

“This immense task will take new ways of thinking, committed local action, flexibility and perseverance. But I know too that it’s a task we can’t shirk. People in troubled families aren't worthless or pre-programmed to fail. I won’t allow them to be written off.

So we must get out there, help them their lives around and heal the scars of the broken society.”

Southampton Test Labour MP Alan Whitehead said: “This is essentially a re-creation of the family intervention projects started under Labour.

“Councils have to put up the money up front – from where, I don’t know.”

Yesterday, questions were raised about how the chances of reaching all 120,000 families across the country.

By March 2011, 95 families were being helped by early intervention projects in Southampton, a seventh of the city’s total troubled households.

Despite the relatively small number of interventions, experts said the tactics were working.

In Southampton, there was a 53 per cent reduction in the number of families with “educational problems” and the number of families involved in crime went down by 44 per cent. There were also sharp drops in the numbers experiencing health and employment difficulties.