A survey jointly carried out by 4Children, the Daycare Trust and Nursery World found that only 60 out of 150 local authorities were able to agree when asked if they could give a commitment to keeping all of their children's centres open. A further 29 local authorities said that they could not agree with the statement but they had 'no plans' to close any of the settings, while 61 local authorities did not respond to the survey or said that they had not yet reached a decision on the future of their children's centres.
The research follows a survey of 917 children's centre managers in January, also by the Daycare Trust and 4Children, which estimated that around 250 centres will be forced to close over the next 12 months and that staff at 1,000 centres have been issued with 'at risk of redundancy notices' (News, 3 February).
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