Children eligible for free school meals who grew up near a Sure Start centre performed up to three grades better at GCSEs than those further away, according to a new study.

Sure Start, a programme providing holistic support to families with children under five, cost £2.5bn per year at its peak but generated big improvements in the educational performance of children from low-income backgrounds, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

The positive impact of Sure Start, which was launched in 1998 by the Labour government, was ‘particularly pronounced’ for the centres set up before 2003 because they had bigger budgets resulting in more successful outreach programmes.

Spending on the programme has since fallen by more than two-thirds as many centres have been closed, scaled back or integrated into Family Hubs, an initiative that received £300m over 2022–25 to deliver services for children of all ages in 75 local authority areas.

Sarah Cattan, a research fellow at the IFS, said that it was unlikely that Family Hubs would be able ‘to go as far’ as Sure Start in helping children from low-income backgrounds, largely because it receives ‘less than 5% of what Sure Start received at its peak.’

Nick Ridpath, a research economist at the IFS, commented: ‘Sure Start generated substantial benefits for disadvantaged children throughout their education, helping to close the disadvantage gap in attainment.’

‘The return on investment in integrated early years services that are given the resources to reach those most in need can be very large,’ he added.

Politicians from the New Labour era, including former prime minister Gordon Brown, have urged opposition leader Keir Starmer to include a new Sure Start-style programme in Labour’s election manifesto.