Oral Answers to Questions — Children, Schools and Families – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 30 November 2009.
Tony Lloyd
Chair, Parliamentary Labour Party
2:30,
30 November 2009
What methods he uses to assess the effectiveness of individual Sure Start centres.
Dawn Primarolo
Minister of State (Department for Children, Schools and Families) (Children, Young People and Families)
Local authorities are responsible for managing the performance of their Sure Start children's centres. Most use a framework devised by my Department in 2007. The Department does not currently receive information on individual centres, but from 2010 Ofsted will have a duty to inspect individual centres and report to the local authority.
Tony Lloyd
Chair, Parliamentary Labour Party
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the real increases in educational attainment by children from disadvantaged backgrounds owe a lot to the Sure Start centres and what they have done for young people, especially in inner-city areas and the equivalent? Who in their right mind would want to get rid of those centres?
Dawn Primarolo
Minister of State (Department for Children, Schools and Families) (Children, Young People and Families)
My hon. Friend is right. The national evaluation of 2008 identifies a Sure Start effect: parents have more positive parenting skills, better home learning environments exist and we can see the development of children. The Leader of the Opposition has said that he supports Sure Start, but he has also identified cuts of more than £200 million to its budget. That would hit the very poorest in our community.
Maria Miller
Shadow Minister (Children, Young People and Families)
The Minister knows that we fully support Sure Start, especially its role in helping children who have the toughest start in life to have better early years education. Can she explain why she takes so little notice of Ofsted's figures, which show that after years of Sure Start children in the most deprived communities are twice as likely to attend a failing nursery as children in the richest areas, and that this situation is getting worse?
Dawn Primarolo
Minister of State (Department for Children, Schools and Families) (Children, Young People and Families)
The hon. Lady will know that wishing support for Sure Start without committing resources to, and investment in, children's centres will never help to tackle the under-achievement that still exists in some parts of the country. She needs to come to the Dispatch Box now and commit her party to match all the spending to which the Government are committed, rather than cutting £200 million from Sure Start. Only then would we see the improvements that she allegedly wants in the performance of the very poorest in our community.
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