Sure Start



Sure Start was created and developed as a way of improving the educational and life chances of socially and economically disadvantaged children. The centres offered families access to services including childcare, healthcare, parenting classes, job skills and playgroups.

By 2010, there were 3,600 centres in the UK. Before that year’s general election, the Conservative leader at the time, David Cameron, promised to protect funding for Sure Start, but this pledge quicly evaporated amid swinging cuts to local authority budgets.

Over the next seven years, early years provision bore the brunt of cuts to children’s services. According to a study carried out by the National Audit Office, released in March 2018, Sure Start budgets in England were reduced by £763m (50%) between 2010 and 2017, as councils focused scarce funds on meeting an explosion in demand for child protection services.

According to the Sutton Trust, an education and social mobility foundation, a lack of clarity in how individual centres are identified and changes are reported means official figures of 500 closures since 2010 are likely to be an underestimate. According to study carried out by Sutton Trust research, the number of closures are 30%, not 14% as reported by the government, with closures more likely exceeding 1000 centres.

After 2010, the budget for Sure Start was no longer ring-fenced, but merged with other programmes. By 2013, national guidance on the ‘core purpose’ of children’s centres shifted focus to targeting ‘high need’ families, rather than open access to universal services.


 * The national database recorded a 14% drop in centre numbers between 2009 and October 2017. However, there is no clear definition of a ‘children’s centre’ and therefore many closures announced locally were not yet reflected in the database: our survey showed a 16% drop. If we only count ‘registered centres’, the drop since 2009 was more than 30%, suggesting that more than 1,000 centres nationally might have closed.
 * By 2017, sixteen authorities closing 50% or more of their centres accounted for 55% of the total number of closures nationally. Six authorities (West Berkshire, Camden, Stockport, Bromley, Oxfordshire and Staffordshire) had closed more than 70% of their centres. Despite this reduction, the proportion of centres in the 30% most disadvantaged areas remained constant from 2009 to 2017 at just over 50%. So, numbers dropped but the focus on disadvantaged areas remained.
 * More centres operate on a part-time basis only and the number of services has fallen. While most centres still offer open access services to families of all backgrounds, these have been reduced, restricted to fewer centres or to fewer sessions. Six out of ten local authorities reported most centres were open full-time; but few or none were open full-time in almost one in five authorities. Reduced services were reported by 55% of local authorities, with only 35% providing a range of ten or more services.
 * Financial pressures came top in 84% of local authorities as a principal driver of change in recent years. This financial squeeze since the removal of ring-fencing is intensifying, with 69% of authorities reporting a budget decrease in the last two years.
 * Change of focus’ came a close second (80%) as a driver of change. This was not just a move towards greater targeting of individual high need families and away from open access. It was also a way of integrating children’s centres into a wider package of ‘early help’ as part of local teams with a much wider age range (0-19), with more than 40% of authorities extending the age range to include school age children.
 * Changed national and local priorities have played a part. The suspension of Ofsted inspections and the lack of any national guidance since 2013 on the purpose of children’s centres were seen in our survey as reducing the importance of children’s centres. The effect was to reduce the strength of children’s centres in local authority priorities.