Children's Centres

(asked on 29th January 2020) - View Source

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) 2015 and (b) 2017.


Answered by
Michelle Donelan Portrait
Michelle Donelan
Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
This question was answered on 3rd February 2020

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 2015 and 2017[2].

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 local areas continue to have sufficient children’s centres to meet their needs.

[1] The number of children’s centres is based on information supplied by local authorities as at 3 January 2020 and shows the number of children’s centre sites in each local authority at the end of the 2015 and 2017 calendar years. These figures may be different to previous answers, and could change again in future, since local authorities may update their data at any time.

[2] The GIAS database does not hold information on the date a children’s centre converts to a children’s centre linked site therefore, while a figure for the split between children’s centres and children’s centre linked sites at the point a query is made can be established, it is not possible to provide a historic breakdown of this figure in previous years.

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