While the Government has promised 2,500 children centres by 2008, Children Now has learned some of these may only be a base for outreach work or an information kiosk.
Original plans for children's centres set out a checklist of core services including early education integrated with full daycare, parental outreach, family support and health services.
But a new "flexible model" described in detail in guidance to be published by the Department for Education and Skills is likely to say centres in more affluent areas will offer far fewer services.
"Centres in more affluent areas may be more like an information kiosk.
That's not the vision that was sold to the public," said Vidhya Alakeson, research fellow for the Social Market Foundation.
Essex County Council has been asked to build 53 extra centres in 2006-08 on top of the 12 it expects to have in place by March next year. But Harriet Hill, head of the council's early years and childcare service, said only eight of these would be "all singing, all dancing" centres or "motherships". Hampshire County Council has an almost identical number of centres to build and plans to tackle the task in the same way as Essex.
The Government said earlier this year that a more flexible model could be appropriate in less disadvantaged areas.
A DfES spokeswoman said the model would mean Essex could offer a full range of services to all children living in its 30 per cent most disadvantaged wards and reach a further 40,000 children in more affluent communities by 2008.
Alakeson argued it was right to target disadvantaged children but said people had been "misled" by a government promise of a children's centre for every community. This pledge did not make it clear that services would differ depending on where you live.
