Sure Start Children’s Centres provide integrated services for young children and their families. The Early Intervention Grant, announced in December 2010 following the Spending Review, contains enough money to maintain a network of children’s centres so they are accessible to all, and supporting families in greatest need.
The Department for Education and the Department of Health will be publishing a policy statement on the Early Years later in the year, setting out our vision for reform. The Department for Education Business Plan commits to working with local authorities to develop plans to:
- Increase voluntary and community sector involvement within children’s centres – through greater local authority commissioning, so that organisations with a track record of supporting families can get more involved.
- Improve accountability arrangements for children’s centres – with greater local transparency.
- Increase the use of evidence based interventions in children’s centres – so that state support goes to services which have proven effectiveness.
- Introduce greater payment by results for children’s centres – so that providers are rewarded for the results they achieve.
Good practice materials and case-studies for children’s centre leaders and local authority officers are available on the National College website.
The Department for Education is available to support local authorities with basic policy queries on children’s centres, but not provide detailed improvement support. Together for Children’s contract ended on 31 March 2011. Please email queries to: earlyyears.mailbox@education.gsi.gov.uk.
This dedicated Early Years address is to enable local authorities to contact the Early Years teams at the Department for Education when a direct policy response is needed in relation to the delivery of local authorities’ Early Years duties. All other correspondence please follow the instructions on the contract us page of this website.
