atus 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 increase in complexity, we’re not seeing increase in demand at the front end of the system. I think that’s because early help is a bit more embedded. We’re one of the few nationally who have a lower referral rate now than pre-COVID. Some of that is about practice change… we’re working with fewer children for longer and we’re seeing more at the top end of the system. 5 Launched in 2021 as a new iteration of the Troubled Families Programme, which started in 2012, and moved from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) to the DfE in 2024. 6 15 local authorities have Earned Autonomy status through Supporting Families funding: Barking and Dagenham, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, Camden, Cheshire West and Chester, Durham, Ealing, Islington, Kent, Leeds, Liverpool, Lincolnshire, Sheffield, Staffordshire and Westminster, along with Greater Manchester Combined Authority. In 2023–24, Dorset, Hertfordshire, Lancashire, Norfolk, Somerset and Wolverhampton were also awarded earned autonomy. 37 We’ve got a very well-developed range of what are now family hubs. We’ve got Earned Autonomy with Supporting Families which makes a huge difference… because we get the money up front it gives us the flexibility to have a really robust early help model… [At national government level] a coherent family help model needs to bring together the massive proliferation of initiatives, mainly with short-term funding, that don’t have a level of coherence. We’ve been able to join that up at local level and that gives us some of the flexibility we have… and we can see how that has impacted through on the flow of families into social care. (DCS, C