The truth about Sure Start

Dispatches from the frontline of Planet Cameron

By Andy Slaughter MP

Confusion has reigned in Hammersmith & Fulham recently over the future of its 15 Children’s Centres, set up by the Labour government. There was heavy censure in the local and national press after I discovered a plan to withdraw funding for nine of the 15 children’s centres, buried within a report sneaked out between Christmas and New Year.

When the report proposing the closures came to the Council’s Cabinet on Monday January 10th one Tory councillor announced that “thinking has moved on” and that the centres would not in fact be closing. In addition to this it was announced that local residents would have a chance to be consulted on the plans.

However, the Tories then proceeded to pass the report as drafted, which meant a £7million cut to the children’s services budget, and the dismissal of 50 staff. The £7m figure amounts to around 30% of the total budget, a swingeing cut considering the Tory-led government have ‘only’ cut the grant by 12%.

Not surprisingly even those in attendance at the meeting were confused. Both local blogger Chris Underwood, and the Fulham Chronicle were present, yet both came to completely different conclusions about what they had seen taking place.

All became clear however with the publication of the council’s consultation document at the weekend . This gives the impression of being hastily put together and is meaningless since the Children’s Centre budget has already been cut.

But it does confirm that there will be no Sure Start centre at nine of the fifteen currently operating. Cynically the paper describes the unfunded centres as ‘spokes’, which will receive token payments of just £19,000 next year. This represents a cut of over 95% to some centres including Broadway, Cathnor Park and Fulham South, and clearly is insuffient to fund even part of their current services.

The six ‘hub’ centres will retain some or all of their budgets, but will be expected to run services covering two to three times the current area, with the total Sure Start budget cut from £4m to £2.2m.

Education Minister Sarah Teather said there was no requirement from central government to make such swingeing cuts to local services. And both Cameron and Clegg made bold promises to defend Sure Start, praising it for promoting social mobility. This is disingenuous as cuts to local government funding will be passed on to Sure Start by many councils. But none so far has decided to cut 60% of the network. But then none is quite like H&F.