Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many Sure Start centres have (a) closed and (b) been converted into children’s centre linked sites in Greater Manchester since 2010.

The government’s Plan for Change sets out a commitment to give every child the best start in life. Progress on this commitment will be measured by assessing whether 75% of five-year-olds are reaching a good level of development in the Early Years Foundation Stage assessment, which looks at children’s development across areas such as language, personal, social and emotional development, and mathematics and literacy, by 2028.

Delivering this will require strengthening and co-ordinating family services to improve support through pregnancy and early childhood. This includes continuing to invest in and build up Family Hubs and Start for Life programmes, which build on the lessons from Sure Start.

75 local authorities with some of the highest levels of deprivation have received funding and there are now more than 400 Family Hubs open across those local authorities. The department is investing a further £126 million in the 2025/26 financial year to give every child the best start in life and deliver on the Plan for Change. Future funding decisions are subject to the multi-year spending review.

Data on the number of Sure Start children’s centres is supplied by local authorities via the department’s Get Information about Schools (GIAS) database portal, which can be accessed here: https://www.get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/.

Based on information supplied by local authorities in the Greater Manchester area, 39 children’s centres have closed since 2010. Local authorities in Greater Manchester have converted a further 62 children’s centres into children’s centre linked sites. ‘Children’s centre linked sites’ are formerly children's centres in their own right, but they no longer meet the statutory definition of a children’s centre. They offer some early childhood services on behalf of another children's centre.

The information on numbers of children’s centres that have closed or converted to linked sites since 2010 is based on data supplied by the local authorities in Greater Manchester as of 2 June 2025. These figures could change again in future, since local authorities may update the database at any time.