Tories cut Sure Start funding by two-thirds
FUNDING for Sure Start centres in Greater Manchester has been slashed by nearly two-thirds since the Tories came to power.
New figures from the Department for Education (DfE) shows just £39.2m was spent on the centres in the region in 2017/18.
That is down from £41.1m the previous financial year – and a drop of 63 per cent from the £107.1m spent in 2010/11.
Sure Start centres were announced in 1998 by the then-chancellor Gordon Brown, and launched later that year.
The centres were aimed at help improve outcomes for young children and their families by offering access to services including childcare, healthcare, parenting classes, job skills and playgroups.
But a National Audit Office report in 2010 found Sure Start was struggling to help the disadvantaged families they were designed to help.
The Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government, which took power in 2010, pledged to take Sure Start back to its ‘original purpose,’ increasing its focus on ‘the neediest families’ and introducing a system of payment by results.
Data released in 2015 suggested nearly 1,000 Sure Start centres had closed over the previous five years as funding was reduced.
The latest shows that Oldham has seen the biggest percentage drop in funding for the centres since 2010/11.
That year, £5.8m was spent in the borough – a figure that has now fallen to £1.2m. Bolton has fallen 75pc from £8.1m to £2m; Wigan by 72pc from £11.1m to £3.1m; Stockport by 71pc from £6.7m to £2m; and Salford by 65pc from £7.1m to £2.5m.
Bury is down from £6.5m to £2.3m; Manchester from £41.4m to £15.9m; Trafford from £5m to £1.9m; Rochdale from £6.2m to £2.6m; and Tameside from £9.1m to £5.6m.
Across England, Sure Start funding has fallen from £1.4bn in 2010/11 to £664.8m in 2017/18.
The government accepted a drop in Sure Start funding, but said it was funnelling money into other family support services.
Angela Rayner, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for education, has spoken in the past about how Sure Start changed her life and that of her family.
After falling pregnant when she was 16, she said her local Sure Start centre helped transform her son’s childhood.
The Ashton-Under-Lyne MP said: “Year after year the Tories have slashed funding for vital services that support some of the most disadvantaged children and families in our country.
“The chronic underfunding of these vital services by the Tories is leading to centres being lost and the most vulnerable are paying the price.
Nadhim Zahawi, the children and families minister, said: “We provide more free childcare than has ever been the case before because we want every child to have the best start in life.
“There are 1.3m three and four-yearold children benefiting from free early education and we have introduced 15 hours a week of free childcare for the most deprived two-year-olds, which almost 750,000 children have already benefited from.”