Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many designated Sure Start Children's Centres there were in each local authority in England in (a) 2010 and (b) 2019.

Since 18 September 2017, data on Sure Start children’s centres and children’s centre linked sites has been supplied by local authorities via the department’s Get Information about Schools (GIAS) database portal at: https://www.get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/.

Based on the information supplied by local authorities[1], the attached spreadsheet provides details of the number of children’s centre sites by local authority in 2010 and 2019.

Councils are reconfiguring services to deliver them more efficiently. If a council decides to close a children’s centre, statutory guidance is clear that they should demonstrate that local children and families would not be adversely affected and that local areas would continue to have sufficient children’s centres to meet their needs.

On 7 November 2019, the department published annual figures for the number of children’s centres from 2003 and June 2019. This data is available at the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/844752/Number_of_Children_s_Centres_2003_to_2019_Nov2019.pdf.

[1] The number of children’s centres is based on information supplied by local authorities as at 3 January 2020. These figures may be different to previous answers and could change again in future, since local authorities may update their data at any time.