Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the average unit cost of a designated Sure Start Children's Centre.

Local authorities have the freedom to target their resources where they will best support the needs of local communities, provided they meet their statutory duty to ensure sufficient children centre services.

Children’s centres are funded through the Early Intervention Grant (EIG), part of the ‘Business Rates Retention Scheme’. This includes money to provide early education for two-year-olds and funding to retain a national network of children’s centres.

The Department for Education does not make estimates of unit costs for children’s centres because of the variety of approaches to the structure of a children’s centre network, and delivery of services, that local authorities are free to employ – bearing in mind statutory guidance – to best meet local need.