Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Sure Start centres have closed in England since 2010.

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

Based on information supplied by local authorities as at 12 March 2019, 585 Sure Start children’s centres had closed since April 2010[1].

However, councils are reconfiguring services to deliver them more efficiently. If a council decides to close a Sure Start children’s centre, statutory guidance is clear that they demonstrate that local children and families will not be adversely affected.

This government introduced an entitlement to 15 hours a week free early education for the most disadvantaged 2-year-olds – a programme that was not available before 2010. More than 700,000 disadvantaged 2-year-olds have benefitted from free early education places since the introduction of the programme in 2013. There are now more than 22,700 providers delivering places for disadvantaged 2-year-olds.

We are already starting to see progress. By 2018, 72% of eligible 2-year-olds were taking up the entitlement to free early education - up from 58% in 2015. The 2017/18 Early Years Foundation Stage Profile results show that the proportion of all children achieving a ‘good level of development’ is improving in 2018 - 71.5% of children achieving a good level of development up from 51.7% in 2013.

[1] Based on information supplied by local authorities as at 12 March 2019, 4:00 pm. These figures may be different to previous answers, and could change again in the future, since local authorities may update the database at any time.