A major national evaluation of Sure Start, by researchers from Birkbeck College in London, will produce a full report on the programme's first two years in July. There are suggestions it will reveal Sure Start has not met targets such as cutting re-registration to the child protection register by one fifth.
But Robert Skidmore, programme manager for Kendray and Worsbrough Sure Start in Barnsley, said national targets may not be the best indicators of success.
He said the programme had allowed professionals to identify local priorities, and said many goals were long-term and some successes were hard to measure. But he admitted policy-makers may have underestimated the time needed to get the programme up and running and said uncertainty over funding had caused problems.
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