However, social workers in the three Devolved Budget pilot areas - Darlington, Hillingdon and Wigan - identified a number of concerns, including lack of confidence and training in how to spend money.
Launched last year, the study aims to find out whether devolved budgets can help safely reduce the likelihood of children and young people being taken into care.
Social workers and their managers were given decision-making control of discretionary budgets to work collaboratively with families for quicker, more tailored responses to family issues.
In interim reports, published by What Works for Children's Social Care, social workers reported that the devolved budgets allowed them to help families in ways that would otherwise not have been possible, and helped them to engage families and build stronger relationships.
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