y help… so we do have low numbers [of children in care] … My lead member will take decisions to invest in things that will come to fruition in six or seven years… Consistency and stability… that translates across all the services, incremental gains, not overspending… Success breeds success (DCS, Unitary, Yorkshire and Humber Region) The breadth and diversity of early help activity available in different areas makes data collection challenging. Nevertheless, SP research focuses on a small set of aggregate early help performance data. These demonstrate increased numbers of families working with (‘open to’) early help services over the recording period and a steady upward trend in early help assessments (EHAs) over the period 2013–23 (Figure 7). Many SP9 survey respondents described early help activity increasing despite only a fifth reporting any increase in early help budgets. All respondents were concerned about the sustainability of this provision. 34 The period 2022–24 saw several initiatives focused on universal and specialist early help provision. In autumn 2021, the then government committed £300 million over three years to the family hub and start for life programme in 75 local authorities. Further family hub funding to March 2026 was announced in autumn 2024. The 75 receiving funding were pre-selected by the DfE based on Income Deprivation Affecting Children Indices (IDACI) average rank, subject to the additional condition that a minimum of 25% of local authorities from each rural urban classification were pre-selected. Of the SP9 86 survey respondents, 42 had received family hub funding. Figure 7 displays rates of EHAs for those in our sample with and without family hub funding. It appears that those with family hub funding have had higher levels of EHAs than ot