Why I believe the Government should bring back Sure Start children’s centres - Jayne Dowle

Our beleaguered government should heed the growing cries of ‘bring back Sure Start’. With the threat of Rachel Reeves’ £40bn black hole looming it’s not likely to happen, but I’ll add my voice to the clarion call.

Sure Starts, children’s centres in less-than-privileged neighbourhoods, introduced by Reeves’ predecessor Gordon Brown in 1998, were safe free to access havens, a place where parents and children could drop in, get together, share experiences, seek advice from health visitors and other professionals, and find guidance on employment.

When my two children were small, we were regular visitors to our local Sure Start. We’d take part in the games and singing and meet other families. There was no judgement here; no-one cared where you lived, what money you had, how many kids you brought with you, or whether your little unit constituted a perfect nuclear family.

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For many parents, it was an absolute lifeline, a reason to leave the house, a place where problems could be discussed in a supportive environment. For those isolated without family support and the youngest mums, going to Sure Start probably saved their sanity. I still bump into my old Sure Start friends today; we smile as we remember those mornings on the play mat and lament that today’s parents have no access to anything similar.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves during an 'in conversation' event the Labour Party Conference. PIC: Stefan Rousseau/PA WireChancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves during an 'in conversation' event the Labour Party Conference. PIC: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves during an 'in conversation' event the Labour Party Conference. PIC: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

Perhaps if they did, one in four children wouldn’t be starting school without being toilet-trained, as the early years charity Kindred reported in September.

Sure Start didn’t just make being a parent less arduous, it helped give kids exactly what it promised – a surer start in life.

The latest analysis from the Institute of Fiscal Studies – a think tank which has been monitoring the long-term effects of Sure Start – shows that a reduction in serious youth offending can now be added to the benefits.

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Previous work by the IFS found that Sure Start improved children's health and educational outcomes. Attending Sure Start had a significantly positive effect on the language, communication, numeracy and social and emotional development of five-year-olds from poorer families. Importantly, these effects persisted into much-improved GCSE results at age 16.

Now we learn that a Sure Start in the neighbourhood reduced the likelihood of a pre-school child receiving a custodial sentence when they became a teenager by 20 per cent. The research, funded by The Nuffield Foundation, finds that the likelihood of receiving a criminal conviction also fell, by 13 per cent.

A 40 per cent cut in drug offences, a 30 per cent drop in convictions involving weapons and a 20 per cent cut in theft, were also found among teenagers who lived near Sure Start centres when they were younger.

It’s argued that 19p out of every pound spent on Sure Start was recouped through savings on criminal justice and social care.

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I’m sure Ms Reeves can do the maths. But it’s not just the money, it’s the political will.

For more than a decade, until David Cameron’s coalition government cut the funding in 2010, Sure Start was an integral part of early years policy in England, providing a range of services for families with young children in one location. At its height, it operated 3,000 centres.

The bedrock of Sure Start was joined-up thinking. Services came together, so were easier to navigate – and it’s worth saying, this was before ‘online’ became the answer to everything. The aim was not to patronise poorer families, but to bring people together, each according to their need, sharing abilities. It was in fact, good old-fashioned socialism in action, a fact that critics of New Labour could not ignore.

Critics of Sure Start would also point out that childcare in the broadest sense has not been a casualty of spending cuts in recent years. They might highlight the gradual expansion of free childcare for preschoolers; 15 hours of free childcare is available for babies from nine months of age for all working parents, rising to 30 free hours for three and four-year-olds.

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But this swerves the point. It shifts the focus from child-centred to parent-centred (read ‘mother-centred’), and woe betide the parent who chooses not to work, or can’t find a job that fits in with wider family responsibilities.

Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, is correct when he argues: “Back then, the focus was on ensuring the best possible start for children growing up in poverty; today, we are spending far more than we ever spent on Sure Start on subsidising the childcare costs of working families.”

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