are numbers, support reunification and all of that… But if you’re already operating at a low level of children in care, you can’t look at that as a good measure of success (DCS, Unitary, Yorkshire and Humber Region). Local authorities without pathfinder funding were also developing multi-agency approaches to better coordinate family help to children and families. 36 [In one school] there were 13 children on CP plans and 23 with children in need plans and six children who were looked after. When [we] investigated it emerged that children’s social care were sending 13 different social workers, four different case workers, and six or seven early help workers into one school. So, they have piloted a wraparound team based on clusters where there is a secondary school and four or five primary schools and involving therapeutic support, early help, practical help and social work. (DCS, Metropolitan, North West Region) Most local areas have relied heavily on the Supporting Families Programme5 to fund early help services over recent years. Here, a sharp contrast was drawn between the experiences of those funded through ‘payment by results’ and the 21 local authorities with what was termed Earned Autonomy (EA) status.6 This enabled the transfer of Supporting Families funding up-front, removing significant resource burdens in tracking family outcomes to evidence results and enabling increased headroom to develop and sustain a robust early help model. This perspective was borne out in MHCLG-funded research which found EA created efficiencies and aided planning and the maintenance of infrastructure (Ipsos Mori, 2019). One DCS with EA status reflected on the long-term benefits of sustained investment on the children’s social care system as a whole. Whilst we’re seeing a lot of increas