At the end of the war the contribution made to the war effort by those who had taken in evacuees was recognised, but even earlier, the whole complex experience of evacuation was being analysed. By the middle of the war there was a much clearer idea of what should have been done.
The plans for the rest of the war and for some future war (which has not happened yet) were very different. The main difference was that much more private evacuation was to be encouraged, because people were much more likely to stay with family or friends.
Where that would not be possible, school groups would be kept together as far as possible, in hostels where they would be with other children and teachers whom they knew.
It was acknowledged of course that there would be new problems: after 1945, the authorities knew that they had to plan, as best they could, for nuclear war.
But there was also urgent planning for peacetime during the war and the experience of evacuation proved an important part of that process. It affected public opinion, sections of which had never come face to face with the deprivation of the urban slums until poor children and their mothers arrived on their doorsteps.
When social planners and politicians talked in future of the need for improved health, hygiene, nutrition, housing, social and academic education or family income, there were fewer dissenting voices.
The social planners themselves had been provided with valuable data about how poor urban children and their families responded to drastic intervention.