The Children, Schools and Families committee said it was far too soon to judge the long-term impact of Sure Start, 'one of the most ambitious Government initiatives of recent decades', when the majority of centres had only been open for four years or less.
Committee chair Barry Sheerman said, 'To put at risk the pioneering work of the last 12 years would be nothing short of a disaster. The early years are when the greatest difference can be made to a child's life chances and it is vital that investment in children's centres is allowed to bear fruit.'
Now that a national network of centres was in place, the Government should focus on raising the quality of staff and services and improve their performance in reaching the most vulnerable families, the committee's report said.
It also stressed the need for children's centres to remain a universal service and said it would be 'a backward step' to restrict access to centres to only families living in disadvantaged areas.
But the report said it was not clear how centres in the most disadvantaged areas could provide high-quality care and education and become self-financing. It recommended the Government formalise and increase subsidy for these settings.
The report also suggested there should be ministerial responsibility for Sure Start in the Department of Health as well as the DCSF, noting that partnership working with health services such as GPs was patchy.
Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4Children, who gave oral evidence to the committee, said, 'This excellent report backs up what 4Children has been saying about the importance of Sure Start as a universal service which, given time, will reap the full value of the investment many times over.'
The National Day Nurseries Association agreed that it was too early to judge the effectiveness of the children’s centre programme.
Chief executive Purnima Tanuku said, ‘While we welcome the recognition of the importance of maintaining quality and affordability, there are many children in areas of disadvantage attending private and voluntary settings and we must focus on how to support all children, not just those who may be in a children’s centres. Private and voluntary nurseries too are working hard to raise quality, including through graduate leadership and growing all staff to Level 3, but they too face the conundrum of how to balance the costs of high-quality services with affordability for parents.
'It is vital that all children, regardless of the sector their setting is in, experience the benefits of a highly-qualified workforce. While the report highlights how extra financial support for children’s centres must be done with ‘due consideration for the impact on local childcare markets’, heavy investment in one sector could be a real threat to the continuation of services within the local area who simply cannot match fees or staff wages.'