Clubs Network (KCN) has found.
A report, The Next Steps for School-Age Childcare, published by KCN with HSBC Bank to coincide with this week's Kids' Clubs Week, showed that more than 7,000 clubs had been created in the past five years due in part to the first phase of funding from the New Opportunities Fund. KCN said it was now half-way to its goal of creating 20,000 clubs by 2010.
But although the number of new clubs increased by 17 per cent overall last year, 7 per cent of clubs had closed. KCN chief executive Anne Longfield said that 40 per cent of out-of-school clubs needed ongoing financial backing to sustain them and that the Government should increase funding over a long period to ensure their viability. But she estimated that the cost of running a club could be slashed by up to 20 per cent if it was sited in a school.
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