Children’s Centres have faced a 35% funding reduction since 2010 leading to the closure or merging of hundreds of services across England, new research has found.
Analysis of official figures by charity Barnardo’s has revealed local authorities spent £740m on children centres in 2014/15, compared to £1.2bn during 2010/11.
Barnardo’s warns that at this rate of decline, annual funding for children’s centres could fall an average of £92m per year. It is calling on Government to provide local authorities with more money to halt the decline and increase funding for disadvantaged 3 and 4 year-olds.
Barnardo’s chief executive officer, Javed Khan, said: ‘Cuts to basic early support now will only result in increased costs in the future. Without the vital support of children centres to the poorest children and families, we are simply neglecting the seeds of more costly problems later in the shape of troubled families, crime, substance abuse and unemployment.
‘Investing in the UK’s children’s centres simply makes sense – not only are we investing in our children, we are investing in our future.’
The charity warns that poorer children attain fewer good GCSEs, are more likely to be unemployed on leaving education and typically lag up to 15 months behind in their vocabulary than their richer peers.
Visit The MJ (£) to read Javed Khan arguing the case for introducing child impact assessments.
