Councils told to get ‘serious’ about early years provision

Local authorities must take the performance of children’s centres, including setting out what impacts they expect, a group of MPs are warning.

A report into Sure Start children’s centres, published by the House of Commons Education Committee, finds that the attainment gap will only be closed if councils and government set out ‘coherent, long-term’ thinking on early years provision.

Education Committee chair, Graham Stuart, said:

‘Education is too important to wait until children reach school age. The Government needs to prove that it is serious about closing the attainment gap for disadvantaged children by setting out coherent, long-term thinking on early years and children’s centres.’

The report calls for a new national outcomes frameworks to increase accountability and for the Government to examine how a longer term view of children’s centre funding can be taken within current spending decision cycles. It also calls for local authorities to monitor the availability of places for two year olds in good and outstanding settings and for a new duty to put children in need in contact with services.

Mr Stuart said:

‘We want stronger accountability for how well individual children’s centres perform and, critically, for how effectively local authorities use children centres to improve outcomes for children in their areas.

‘Closing children’s centres should go ahead only after proper consultation and where alternative options have been considered. While some changes may make the network as a whole more effective, it should be up to local authorities to decide how best to organise and commission services.’

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