Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the number of children's centres that closed in each of the last 12 years; and what steps his Department is taking to help ensure there is adequate capacity in children's centres.

Based on the information supplied by local authorities, as of 18 March 2022[1], there were 2,966 children’s centre sites open to families and children, providing children's centre services as part of a network.

The attached table shows the number of children’s centres sites that have closed in each year since 2011[2].

The government is committed to championing the family hub model. Between 2019 and 2021, it announced £39.5 million in support of this commitment, including:

• A national centre for family hubs to provide expert advice and guidance. This is run by the Anna Freud Centre for Children and Families.

• A £12 million family hubs transformation fund, which will support at least 12 local authorities in England to transform to a family hub model of service delivery. Local authorities were invited to apply for up to £1 million to pay for the change process through both programme and capital funding. The deadline to apply has now passed and the department is currently reviewing applications.

As part of the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021, the government announced a further £82 million to create a network of family hubs. This is part of a wider £300 million package to transform services for parents, carers, babies, and children in half of council areas across England.

Children’s centres can form part of a family hub network. The National Centre for Family Hubs will work to ensure that councils understand how they can best be incorporated where it is appropriate.

[1] Source: This is based on information supplied by local authorities to Get Information about Schools (GIAS) database: https://www.get-information-schools.service.gov.uk and internal management information held by the department on historical children’s centre closure dates as of 18 March 2022. These figures may be different to previous answers, and could change again in future, since local authorities may update their data at any time. The GIAS collects data on children’s centres that local authorities have closed on a permanent basis. It does not collect data on children’s centres that local authorities may have closed temporarily in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

[2] No closures have been reported in 2022.