Surrey County Council is to ask for more government funding for local authorities to intervene earlier in children’s services across the UK to plug the gaps created by the closure of the Sure Start Children’s Centres by the previous government.
This is the result of a Green motion proposed at the council meeting this morning (Tuesday 10th December). Council officers agreed to write to the government to ask for more money for preventative work with families.
The motion, put by Cllr Jonathan Essex (Green, Redhill East), also asked for the council to review the benefits of taking a broader preventative approach to children’s services and to come up with a new strategy for improving long-term outcomes for Surrey families. The latter could include investigating the potential for new community hubs to be created to extend support to young families and youth work across the county.
Surrey’s 58 Sure Start centres, located within “pram-pushing” distance of Surrey neighbourhoods with greatest need for support, were replaced by 23 ‘family centres’ in 2017. The council stopped employing youth workers and placed reliance on delivery by community organisations at a similar time. Reduced funds are targeted to support individual families. While the number of children taken into care has reduced research suggests the reduced broader community support will have increased children needing additional support when starting school, and worsened the health and education outcomes of young people from the areas with the greatest needs.
Arguing at the meeting for more funding, Cllr Essex said that rising levels of child poverty made it a good time to restore the now proven benefits of Sure Start centres.
Cllr Essex said, “Living near Sure Start centres is known to have reduced childhood obesity, youth crime and the number of children needing support for special educational needs. Proximity to the centres also decreased child hospital admissions and improved exam results, especially among children from lower-income households and those from minority ethnic backgrounds.
“Spending on Sure Start Centres led to even greater savings for the education system, the NHS and the youth justice and social care systems. They reduced the number of Surrey children being left behind. Prevention works and we need more funding for prevention, to reduce the demand for children’s services later on.
“Surrey County Council’s current approach pays for less of the earlier group support that was in place when we had Sure Start centres, and what is provided varies across our communities. We need to make plans for how best to deliver better prevention across the whole of Surrey, leaving no child behind.”
