Children’s Centres

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sheridan. I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) on securing this debate on an important topic. Like him, the Government believe that Sure Start children’s centres have a critical role to play in their communities, and they are at the heart of the Government’s vision for early intervention. There is enough money in the system to maintain the network of children’s centres, and we have also provided extra investment for health visitors. However, I recognise the concerns that the hon. Gentleman raised in his speech, and I will address those issues in my response.

First, I will make a few general remarks about Sure Start children’s centres and the direction of reform, which I hope will put things into context. Since my appointment as a Minister, I have had the privilege of visiting many children’s centres around the country, and I have seen how highly they are valued by families and communities. That point was echoed by the hon. Gentleman when he spoke of the testimony of individual constituents, and how much they have appreciated the support in their local area.

Those positive messages are reinforced by the evidence. The 2008 and 2010 reports from the national evaluation of Sure Start showed improved outcomes in a number of areas including better behaviour, more positive parenting skills and home learning environments, and better physical health of children who live in an area with a Sure Start programme. The evidence supports the messages we hear from families that children’s centres make a real difference to their lives.

Last week, the Government published their response to the report by the Select Committee on Education about Sure Start children’s centres. In that response, we set out in more detail our vision for children’s centres: they should be accessible to all, but with a clear role in identifying and supporting the most vulnerable and disadvantaged families. That policy vision will be built on by a policy statement that we intend to publish in the spring. It will differ from many of the policy statements and the way in which we have produced them in the past, in that we intend to co-produce it with the sector, building on the ideas on the ground, on best practice and on the sector’s views about how to shape the future of centres.

Evidence shows that children from advantaged backgrounds do better than those from disadvantaged groups, with a range of health, cognitive and language differences becoming apparent by the age of three. Those are some of the issues to which the hon. Gentleman referred. It cannot be fair that children’s outcomes and life chances depend on the circumstances of their birth. An important element of children’s centres is their accessibility. However, within that, I want them to be better at targeting resources on the most disadvantaged and vulnerable families to help close that gap in outcomes.

Key areas for reform will include an increase in the use of evidence-based interventions, which the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) spoke about in his report. We believe that public money should go to services that have proved their effectiveness, particularly in supporting the most disadvantaged and vulnerable families. We also want improved accountability and transparency. That includes the introduction of payment by results so that local authorities and providers are rewarded for the results they achieve. We intend next year to make local authorities publish more information about how they spend their money, so it will be clear what money they are spending on children’s centres and what money they are holding back for administrative support, which picks up on some of the points made by the hon. Member for Sefton Central.

We also want increased voluntary and community sector involvement in children’s centres, so that organisations with a track record of supporting families can get more involved.

[Bill Esterson]

I want to pick up on the point about analysing whether local authorities have passed on the money to children’s centres, and waiting until next year. My concern, which was expressed strongly by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), is that that is too late. If they have not done that and the centres have started to close, it will be very difficult to rebuild the network. If there were a loss of that support over crucial months or even a year, that would be a very long time for families to wait.

[Sarah Teather]

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point. If it is okay, I will go on to say a little about the early intervention grant and the particular concerns about reorganisation on the ground.

The hon. Gentleman pointed to the 4,200 extra health visitors whom we will be committing to recruiting. We hope that they will work alongside children’s centre outreach teams to support the families most in need. That is being funded by the Department of Health. On our direction of travel, we want to work closely with the sector on the ground to ensure that we are getting the reforms right. We will be considering the report by the hon. Member for Nottingham North and the review by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who intervened and whose point I will pick up on in a moment. We have also asked Dame Clare Tickell to review the early years foundation stage. That will inform the work we are doing.

The bulk of what the hon. Member for Sefton Central spoke about related to his concern about the early intervention grant. We have made clear our commitment to Sure Start children’s centres. We believe that we have ensured that there is enough money to maintain the national network of centres and to enable local authorities to meet their statutory duties.

[Mr Slaughter]

The Local Government Association says that, on a like-for-like basis, there is a 27% decrease in the early intervention grant when compared with the previous year. My Conservative council, in trying to excuse its cuts, says:

“This grant is 12.9% less than the previous allocation for the same services.”

Will the Minister deal with that point, about which she is in denial? Will she also deal with the point that the lack of ring-fencing means that councils such as mine can make outrageous decisions to close down stage 1 children’s centres—exactly the ones she thinks should stay open? Their grant is being cut from £475,000 to £19,000. That is happening in Shepherd’s Bush—an area I think she knows well.

[Sarah Teather]

I recognise that there are particular concerns in the hon. Gentleman’s area, and it is an issue I am monitoring. However, I do not recognise the figures he gave from the LGA or the figures the hon. Member for Sefton Central cited, I think, from Polly Toynbee’s article. The hon. Member for Hammersmith will recognise that this is a very difficult time financially, and that local authorities are having to make difficult decisions on the ground in the same way that the Government are having to make difficult decisions. We are trying to tackle the deficit, and it is not possible to do that without reducing funds overall. When the situation is very difficult, it is even more important that we provide more flexibility for local authorities to make the right decisions in their area—to focus on what they need to do in their local community. That is precisely why we have reduced the ring-fencing; we are responding to what local authorities have asked us to do.

[Bill Esterson]

There is a contradiction here, because on the one hand local authorities are being given so-called freedom, but on the other the Government are saying that Sure Start children’s centres are an absolute priority. Unless there is some guidance from the Government or we have something stronger and the Government legislate for it, I fail to see how they can guarantee that the network will be maintained and enhanced.

[Sarah Teather]

Let me pick up on that point. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead made a similar point about the network. I have a great deal of sympathy with the point he made, particularly as we look down the track to the reforms the Government want to make. For example, we are providing extra money for relationship support, which will train people working in children’s centres to deliver that on the ground. To respond to the point that the hon. Member for Sefton Central made about developing services for older children, all those things are possible and are good things in an area. However, if we do not give local authorities the flexibility to make the decisions that are right for their area, we will not get a service that is suitable for local need: we will end up with a one-size-fits-all service driven from Whitehall.

There is a difference between a local authority that is making catastrophic cuts to services for children and one that is trying to make sensible decisions in a very difficult environment. That may include clustering children’s centres, merging back-office functions and reorganising where some of the centres are located because some buildings are not appropriate or because populations have changed since the stage 1 centres were put in place. Those are all sensible reorganisations, and we have to have some trust in local authorities to get on with that.

Providing a more flexible grant, the early intervention grant, which is significantly larger than the children’s centre budget, should allow local authorities, if they want to do so, to link together different services as they think about the long-term reorganisation of their children’s centres, youth provision or family support, so that they can offer things in a clustered way. I hope that that will provide more flexibility for them to do the right thing.

There is a legal duty on local authorities to consult before opening, closing or significantly changing children’s centres. From what the hon. Member for Sefton Central said, it sounds as though in his area, parents will be very vocal about what they want to see by way of the provision of centres in their area. That is the right process. Parents should engage, and local authorities should listen to the views of families about how to reorganise on the ground.

However, Sure Start children’s centres are at the heart of what the Government want to do in the long term with early intervention. Children’s centres are a very valuable resource, but often full use is not made of them. They are not always open all hours. There are opportunities for children’s centres—for example, where there are flexible services, such as baby massage—to charge a nominal amount for those services in order to bring in small amounts of income. Local authorities can think more innovatively about the way in which they organise their children’s centres on the ground, but the priority is that we have outcomes. The Government are trying to move towards measuring outcomes, rather than always measuring inputs, which is why we will move towards more payment by results. It is why our accountability framework will focus more on outcomes, particularly for the most disadvantaged children.

I am very grateful for the support that the hon. Member for Sefton Central has given today to children’s centres. We believe that they are a vital service. I believe that there is adequate money in the early intervention grant to fund the network of children’s centres, but I am grateful to him for raising the concerns in his area today.