Andrea Leadsom, Conservative MP for South Northamptonshire who chairs the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on Sure Start children’s centres, said the DfE had committed to the project following prompting by children’s minister Edward Timpson.
Leadsom told CYP Now that the DfE had confirmed it will study children’s centres in Manchester, York, and Bury, some of which have offered birth registration services for a decade.
“A member of the DfE’s Sure Start team is spending the next few weeks gaining evidence from children’s centres that already do registering of births,” said Leadsom.
“They are going to look at whether there is a quantitative correlation between the centre’s figures for reach – the number of babies you support in your area – and the fact they offer birth registration. We want to make the case that offering registration of births, which you are legally able to do from children’s centres, would be a game changer for children’s centres.”
Leadsom and shadow children’s minister Sharon Hodgson signed an amendment to the Children and Families Bill in April to require the government to study if children’s centre birth registration services impacted on children’s welfare, to encourage children's centres to offer the service.
They withdrew the amendment after a Children and Families Bill committee debate concluded it would be technically difficult to include in the bill, and unnecessary as registrars already have legal freedoms to register births from children’s centres.
Instead, Timpson agreed the DfE would investigate the benefits of the proposed system.
Debbie Koroma, children’s services manager at the Barnardo’s Benchill children’s Centre in Manchester, which has offered birth registrations since 2001, said the provision had led more parents to access their services.
She said about 7,500 families had registered births at the centre since the scheme began, with 85 per cent of those parents engaging in other services as a result.
Koroma said the system helped centre staff identify children’s welfare needs at the earliest stage.
“Sometimes they have issues so we can note any child protection issues, or a new family that might not have English as a first language,” said Koroma.
“We can also target families with babies that have been born with a disability or prematurely, to prevent problems escalating early.”
Koroma said the system had increased the number of fathers the centre engages with as fathers must be present at their child’s registration.
The APPG on Sure Start is also due to gather evidence on the system as part of its inquiry into best practice in children’s centres.
Hodgson, the APPG’s vice chair, said: "There is real cross-party agreement on the need to do everything we can to ensure children's centres are reaching all of the new parents in their area, and we know from where it happens already that registering births in them is very effective in achieving this.
“I'm very encouraged by the minister's commitment to trialling this, and I'm looking forward to an update on progress."
