The Government very much welcome the recent report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on the effects of Sure Start. It is crucial that, in our pursuit of better outcomes for children and families and in making spending decisions, we are guided by high-quality evidence. The report gives us more of that.
The report shows very clearly that children in disadvantaged areas benefit most from services. Indeed, those in the richest 30% of neighbourhoods saw practically no impact at all. The policy framework we have in place reflects that evidence. In 2013, the Government introduced a new core purpose for children’s centres, focusing on families in the greatest need of support. While we have seen local authorities remodel services, there are now more children’s centres than at any other time prior to 2008—in fact, since Tony Blair was Prime Minister. This is at a time when the Government are making record investment in childcare, with more than 700,000 of the most disadvantaged two-year olds having benefited from 15 hours’ free childcare since its introduction in 2013. In addition, under the Government’s healthy child programme, children and families now receive five mandatory health visitor checks in the early years. The statutory framework also contains important protections so that outcomes for children and families, particularly the most disadvantaged, will not be adversely affected by the proposed changes to children’s centre provision.
The IFS concludes that policy makers must
“consider which types of services and models of provision can most effectively help this group”.
The Government agree. Indeed, we already have work under way to do exactly that. As part of our £8.5 million early years local government programme, we announced in April that the Early Intervention Foundation will look at children’s centres and other delivery models to find out what works well, so that local authorities have more evidence to help them to continue to make the best decisions for their communities.