Threat to rural children’s centres

MPs were told yesterday it would be “very difficult” to maintain the universal nature of Sure Start centres in areas such as East and North Yorkshire if the local council spending squeeze continues – and that it is wealthier families who are likely to miss out.

The establishment of a national network of Sure Start children’s centres is seen by Labour as one of its proudest achievements, offering early years education, drop-in sessions and information services for parents in the heart of the community. But with council budgets having been slashed by more than a quarter since 2010, most centres have seen significant reductions in funding.

Concerns have been raised repeatedly about the possibility of widespread closures, although so far these have not materialised.

Giving evidence before the Commons Education Committee yesterday, Annette Wray, area manager of East Riding Council’s early years team, said a more likely outcome was that the centres would no longer be able to offer services for all types of family.

“It’s very difficult,” she said. “We want to try and keep that universal nature of children’s centres, so that everyone feels comfortable coming in. But there’s bound to be a question around having those mixed groups of parents and children coming into those sessions.”

Ms Wray stressed the beneficial nature of maintaining a universal service, with the mixing of parents and children of different background bringing a “richness” to the sessions and offering valuable help to disadvantaged parents.

“People see different role models, different approaches to parenting, different styles – you need to keep that,” she said. “What we’re trying to do is maintain the network of children’s centres that we’ve got... trying to make sure we’ve got the mix of specialist sand universal services. That might change as budgets decrease in the future, but that’s what we’re trying to maintain.”

The committee heard that children’s centres play a crucial role in offering support to struggling parents whose children may otherwise end up in care – so ultimately saving society significant costs. This, according to Jon Stonehouse, deputy director of children’s services at Salford Council, would have to be the priority if services are cut further.

“There is no doubt the universal element will become more difficult to continue to deliver if the current financial situation continues,” he said. “What local authorities can’t afford to do is to lose the early intervention, the targeted element, because that is such an important element of the whole safeguarding system.”

The situation is especially acute in rural areas. Council executives from urban areas told the committee they would be able to have different children’s centres offering different types of specialise services within a city for parents to choose from – but that this would not be possible in far-flung rural counties such as North or East Yorkshire.

Coun Peter John, London Councils’ executive member for children’s services, said it was rural areas which will struggle the most.

“Funding arrangements are very different for (different) local authorities,” he said.

“The feedback we have is these big rural counties have always found it a challenge, and are finding it more of a challenge.

“Whereas for those of us who are in metropolitan areas it is relatively a bit easier to maintain your services.”

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