Following Michael Gove (shadow secretary for children,schools and families) recent visit to the Sure Start Centre at Bagshot Infant School he has issued this statement:
We have already announced plans for how a Conservative Government will strengthen Sure Start through the reintroduction of a universal Sure Start based Health Visitor service. International evidence shows that when parents are supported by health professionals such as health visitors, their children are more like to be healthy, do well at school, find better jobs and stay out of crime. The money currently set aside for ‘outreach workers’ will instead be used to provide an additional 4,200 trained Sure Start health visitors. This will give parents support in the crucial early years of their child’s life.
In these difficult economic times we need Sure Start to be more effective, particularly in reaching out to families who may be most in need of the support it offers. The Government’s main objective for Sure Start was to close the gap in achievement between children from poor and more affluent families. An objective it has sadly failed to achieve despite spending £17 billion on early years support over the past decade.
The National Audit Office found that, despite the Government spending nearly £9 billion on Sure Start since 1999, only a third of Sure Start Children’s Centres had proactively sought hard-to-reach families. The Government have failed to close the gap between the rich and poor at a very young age. We have seen a decline in the reading, writing and mathematical achievements of six year olds from the most deprived communities. Nearly 3,000 fewer six year olds from the most deprived communities achieve level 2 or above in Key Stage 1 mathematics today than they did in 2005 and the number of six year olds from the most disadvantaged communities achieving the national standard in writing has dropped by 18% since 1997.
We believe that our plans for Sure Start will start to address these worrying problems and help centres up and down the country in the work they are doing to give children the best start in life.
The Government is guilty of spreading scare stories about Conservatives cutting Sure Start. It is shameful that parents and Sure Start staff are being worried and misled in this way. Sure Start continues to have a central role to play in our plans to strengthen families and help make Britain one of the most family friendly countries in the world.
Filed under: 1
