Government invests further £351m in children’s centres
17 Oct 2007
The Government backs its pledge to have a Sure Start Children’s Centre in every community, with a further investment of £351m
The latest funding will pay for developing, extending and modifying existing centres in less disadvantaged areas to bring the total number of Children’s Centres to 3,500 by 2010.
Speaking at the Family and Parenting Institute (FPI), Children’s Minister Beverley Hughes said: ‘We know that children’s centres work – they are making considerable progress in providing better services for young children and their families.
‘Our latest foundation stage results show early evidence that our investment in early years is starting to show results in the classroom and a parental survey from earlier this year found that a massive 90% of parents were happy with the services they received in our children’s centres.
‘I welcome all the hard work that parents, practitioners and local authorities have done to make sure that young children have the best possible start in life and keep this the focus of my work in government.
Commenting on the additional funding package, Steve Alexander, Chief Executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, England’s largest voluntary sector provider of childcare, said: ‘While we welcome the latest investment to develop and extend existing centres in less disadvantaged areas, we remain concerned at the lack of any mention of specific support for childcare in children’s centres and also for Neighbourhood Nurseries, nurseries located in areas of disadvantage.
‘The lack of long term government funding for childcare provision is hitting providers reaching the most disadvantaged families hard and the burden of childcare costs is falling increasingly on the parents in these communities. Parents in the UK already pay the highest proportion of childcare costs in Europe paying around 70 per cent of the cost of childcare, compared with European parents who pay around 30 per cent of their childcare costs.
‘The Alliance acknowledges the Government’s unquestionable commitment to the early years, but stresses that quality affordable universal childcare, particularly for families living in areas of high unemployment and low income, can only become a reality if the true cost of providing services is acknowledged and supported through major long term government subsidy
The first phase of the Government’s children centre project concentrated on providing children’s centres in some of the most disadvantaged areas in the country. There are currently 1,500 centres.
Last week the Government issued its response to the Public Accounts Committee report on Sure Start Children’s Centres. It provided information on all the action taken to improve services such as: issuing practice guidance on how to engage disadvantaged families, providing a toolkit on how to engage with excluded groups providing business planning guidance and staff training to improve financial management and obtain value for money.
