Call for action to arrest decline in number of children’s centres

As councils finalise their spending plans for the coming year, for many areas it signals a new wave of cuts and closures to children’s centres services.

In February, Suffolk Council announced plans to close at least 11 centres, Nottinghamshire Council approved three closures and an “outstanding”-rated centre in Calderdale also learnt it is to shut.

With many councils still to finalise budgets, and local government funding pressures showing no sign of easing, the likelihood is that more children’s centres will face closure or cuts in the coming weeks.

Decade of decline

The bleak outlook follows the publication of Department for Education figures that show the number of children’s centres open in England fell by a third between April 2010 and January 2020 (see graphics).

In addition, there is emerging evidence that some councils have not updated for many years the government figures, rendering them out of date and inaccurate.

“My strong conclusion is that there have been many more closures than are recorded by the DfE and the list of open centres is a serious over-estimate,” says George Smith, an Oxford University academic and lead author of the 2018 Stop Start report for the Sutton Trust, which at the time calculated that around 1,000 centres had been closed.

Smith says he found examples of where the figures published by the DfE did not match those provided by councils for his own survey – which had an 80 per cent response rate – leading to the conclusion that some authorities were not updating the DfE about the scale of the closures.

“It is very clear that for whatever reasons, a significant number of local authorities do not update their numbers and so the results on the [DfE] system overstate the true number of open centres,” he explains.

“This is not to blame local authorities as they have had massive reductions in their grant and children’s centres now have a much lower priority.”

The government data, contained in the Get Information About Schools system and based on council-reported figures to the DfE, shows that the number of children’s centre locations fell by 502 over the decade to 3,014, however 695 of these were listed as “linked sites”.

Many linked sites operate on a part-time basis – sometimes only for a few hours a week – and offer a limited range of services.

When excluding linked sites in the count, the number of open children’s centres fell to 2,319, a 34 per cent reduction.

Smith says the number of linked sites “confuses the overall picture” of what services are available in different areas.

“Some authorities have genuinely moved to a ‘hub and spoke’ model with a few large centres and a number of smaller satellites,” he says. “But in other cases the term may be used to cover in effect simply a location that might once have been a full centre. We found that many linked sites had started out as main children’s centres, particularly in disadvantaged areas.”

Linked sites

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, says the inclusion of linked sites in the official statistics “suggests a cynical attempt to downplay the shocking scale of centre closures”.

“We know children’s centres play a pivotal role in supporting both children and parents, particularly those from more vulnerable families – and yet for several years now, the government has effectively abandoned these vital services, with inspections on seemingly permanent pause and a review into children’s centres only commissioned last year after a five-year delay,” Leitch says.

“As a result, we’re seeing increasingly patchy and inconsistent provision across the country, with many reports of centres that are technically still operating but have been all but hollowed out.”

Pamela Sammons, emeritus professor of education at the University of Oxford, agrees that many centres have seen services cut and restructured.

Prof Sammons says: “The original concept of an accessible open-access neighbourhood children’s centre available to all local families has been eroded and hundreds of thousands of families and their children have missed out on the promise of a sure start.”

As funding has reduced and provision shrunk, some councils have refocused children’s centres away from offering a universal service to one targeted at the most disadvantaged families.

Action for Children, which runs children’s services on behalf of some councils, says its own research has identified this shift in use.

“We expect this to continue unless there is a much-needed increase in funding from central government,” says Imran Hussain, the charity’s director of policy and campaigns.

He adds that this is reflected in a 20 per cent fall in the number of children using its centres between 2014 and 2018.

It has “worked closely with councils” to adapt provision “to best meet the needs of the families they support at a time of reduced budgets”, Hussain adds.

“In Devon, for example…alongside providing a range of services in children’s centres for families with young children, our targeted service has focused on getting out into communities and reaching families who need support the most.”

“We’ve also been offering group and one-to-one support for those who need it, particularly anyone finding parenting tough.”

For some early years experts, it is the shift to a more targeted service that is the most concerning trend.

Overcoming stigma

“Being open access helped overcome stigma because you had rich and poor using the same resource,” says Naomi Eisenstadt, an early years policy expert and former architect of the Sure Start programme.

Eisenstadt says for cash-strapped councils, the key is to have children’s centres in communities where families most need them but ensure they remain open access. Having a “mixed economy” of centres offering different things for different communities “is not bad thing”, she adds.

“In some disadvantaged areas you want all-singing all-dancing children’s centres but in other areas maybe not,” she says.

James Hempsall, director of early years consultancy Hempsalls and a former children’s centre manager, says the development of children’s centres was backed by evidence that showed “stigmatised services were least effective in terms of engagement and family empowerment”.

“If centres are cornered into being problem-solvers and interventionists rather than real partners in children’s and families’ development, then we are setting the programme up to fail again,” he adds.

“The pendulum swing away from prevention to one more focused on reaction really does create significant financial and other pitfalls.”

Most early years experts see little sign of an end to the closures. Leitch says that only “the development of a clear, coherent, long-term strategy for their future” from the government can solve the crisis. Action for Children largely agrees, while Hempsall calls for policymakers to view children’s centres as part of the national infrastructure (see below).

For the Local Government Association, it boils down to ministers providing more money.

Judith Blake, chair of the association’s children and young people board, says: “While many councils have worked hard to try and adapt to the ongoing funding pressures they face and changed how they provide children’s centre services, there is a growing sense that many have done all they can within ever tightening budgets.

“It is inevitable that without new investment from government in children’s services, councils will face the difficult but unavoidable decision of having to cut or close vital early help services such as children’s centres to try and deal with the ever-increasing demand for children’s social care.”

WHAT ACTION DOES THE GOVERNMENT NEED TO TAKE TO INJECT NEW LIFE AND PURPOSE INTO CHILDREN’S CENTRES?

By Imran Hussain, director of policy and campaigns, Action for Children

We want the government to bring in a National Childhood Strategy that gives clarity on what they want children’s centres to achieve for children and an outcomes framework for the centres, created in collaboration with families, central and local government, that measures children’s development by age five. Only then will we be able to ensure all our children get the best start in life and enjoy a safe and happy childhood.

Once ministers are clear about what they want – thereby accountable – they would need to provide the funding needed to do the job. If councils don’t have the funds to provide early help services, more children will be left at potential risk of abuse and neglect.

Ministerial will and Treasury backing would provide the political leadership we need to end the current limbo which has seen the shelving of the promised consultation on children’s centres and the suspension of Ofsted inspections.

By James Hempsall, director, Hempsall’s Consultancy

We are led to believe the government will invest in those areas that feel left behind. I hear of ideas to invest in infrastructure in these regions. The government would do well to look beyond traditional road and rail projects, important as they are. If you want to invest in infrastructure, invest in children’s centre or similar services. Ones that focus on engagement, early identification and non-stigmatised individualised services.

Every family needs something different, not an off-the-shelf service that achieves little impact. That is why I think a return to the peak of the one-size-fits-all children’s centres programme would be a mistake. Too much emphasis was placed on building and resourcing centres, then filling them with services that did not always hit the mark. Let us truly connect with these families and make the difference we all want for their futures.