DEPARTMENT FOR
CHILDREN, SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES News Release (2007/0144) issued by
The Government News Network on 2 August 2007
The Government
today underlined its determination to improve life for
disadvantaged children in England, with a cash injection of more
than £4bn to children's centres, early years education and childcare.
The money will go towards:
* Providing a Sure Start Children's Centre in every
community
* Outreach work to reach the most disadvantaged
families
* Training and support for the early years
workforce
* Ensuring there are sufficient childcare places in
each Local Authority
* Ensuring every nursery and
children's centre has a graduate to lead children's
learning and development
The £4bn grant, spread over three years, will go towards
fulfilling the pledge that there will be a Sure Start
children's centre for every community by 2010. Some of the
money will be targeted at the most disadvantaged areas to enable
children's centres to employ extra outreach workers to visit
parents in their own homes and encourage them to take advantage of
the parenting support and other services on offer through centres.
Sure Start Children's Centres will give all parents and
their children a place to go and a one-stop shop to find the
services they need - from maternity checks to childcare to advice
on getting back to work.
Beverley Hughes, Children, Young People and Families Minister said:
"The early years are crucial to a child's development
and their future prospects. We need to put services in place that
can give every child the very best possible start in life. Local
Authorities now have the money to make that happen."
The grant will also pay for additional training and support for
the early years workforce. This is to make sure that every child
has the high quality provision we want them to receive. By funding
the training directly we can help keep costs down and keep
childcare affordable. Quality will also be driven up by teacher
advisors visiting all nurseries to see if quality is good enough,
and offering advice and help.
The grant also includes funding to make sure there are sufficient
childcare places in each Local Authority area to allow parents to
go back to work or into training, and to increase the take-up of
childcare and early education especially among disadvantaged
groups. The funding will help Local Authorities identify needs,
work with local providers to meet them and make sure parents know
what is available.
As part of the grant, £175m has been earmarked across three years
to support the private, voluntary and independent sector providers
of early education and childcare. It will also help ensure that
every full daycare nursery and childcare centre has at least one
graduate (with two graduates in the most disadvantaged areas).
Research shows that this can have a dramatic impact on a
child's early years' education.
Ends
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. As of 10 July 2007 there were 1,325 Sure Start Children's
Centres providing access to services for over a million children
and their families.
2. The aim is to have 2,500 Centres by 2008 so that the most
disadvantaged families will have access to a Children's
Centre; and 3,500 Centres by 2010, so that there will a Centre in
every community.
3. The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) 3-11
Project states that "settings which had staff with higher
qualifications showed a higher quality and their children made
more progress with regard to intellectual/cognitive and
social/behavioural development". This research goes on to
show the particular importance of graduate leaders.
4. DCSF has recognised that there is more to do in order to
reach the most disadvantaged children. That is why we have
contracted with Together for Children - a private and voluntary
sector consortium - to support the delivery of Sure Start
Children's Centres and to make sure they do the best possible
outreach work. We have also produced clear guidance based on that
good practice about how to reach out to specific groups such as
fathers, parents of disabled children or parents who are
themselves disabled. We have also given guidance to local
authorities on performance management of centres - including how
they check on who is being reached. We have also invested in
training for centre managers to help them with this really tough job.
5. The grant includes £68m in 2008/09 only to meet the start up
costs of extended schools. This sum is part of the £1.1bn funding
over 3 years for extended schools announced on 25 July. From
2009/10 onwards all funding for extended schools will be part of
the Standards Fund.
6. In addition to this grant, local authorities also receive
funding for the free early years entitlement for 3 and 4 year
olds, currently £3bn pa. Additional funding to extend the free
entitlement to 15 hours will be allocated in the autumn.
7. A full breakdown of allocations is available from http://www.surestart.gov.uk.
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