...but the closing of Sure Start centres around the country in record numbers shows that Britain is creating a problem for the future, rather than preventing one.

A research study by Oxford University academics states that about 1,000 Sure Start centres may have closed since 2009. This number is much higher than what the government claims. By reducing life-enhancement chances and familial support for disadvantaged children, the government is setting them up to remain a step behind the rest of the country.

Sure Start centres were originally conceived as a one-stop-shop government initiative to bring together several services for families with young children under one roof. It initially began as an equaliser programme for disadvantaged families in needy areas, but soon spread across the country.

Sure Start centres include access to speech therapists, counsellors, teachers and health care services. They provide support and education for new parents and single mothers, attempting to make up for the lack of an extended family system that no longer exists. The centres are meant to be ‘pram pushing’ distance away from most households that need their services.

Research has shown that, over the years, Sure Start centres and their programmes have brought about positive changes for children and parents. However, despite the evidence that these centres are doing a good job, the closures are not the only problem. Local councils are merging centres, due to lack of funds. This means that the remaining centres take on a huge workload and lack of proper staff means fewer services have to be shared by more people.

The reason for these setbacks is that the government has cut its budget for children and youth services by nearly £1 billion over the last six years. This means that the centres are now on a ‘crisis’ fire fighting model, focusing on high-need situations rather than helping the majority of children who need their services.

Several leading charities and bodies, including the Sutton Trust and LGAs, have warned that unless the government urgently closes the funding gap, there will be a sharp increase in disadvantaged families reaching ‘crisis point’.  With the government speaking about ‘closing the gap’ but making policy decisions that bring about even most discrepancy, it is obvious that social mobility is going to take a downturn in the years to come.

Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility Commission, in the latest State of the Nation report, has said that the UK is spiralling backwards in social mobility trends.

The latest research shows that if you are born into poverty in the UK, you will very likely remain poor throughout your life. The BBC’s extremely popular The Great British Class Calculator shows seven new classes in Britain now.

We have always been a country preoccupied with class. Data shows that while the class divide shrunk after WW2, the end of the previous century saw the graph plateau, and now it is beginning to regress.

Does this mean that social class is again going to raise its ugly head in Britain? Are we looking at a cusp of an even wider divide between the haves and have-nots? We are definitely going to pay for these decisions as a society, with disadvantaged children beginning to learn later and being side-lined during the most crucial time of their life.

There is no other way forward, if we are being smart about it, than refocusing on closing the widening divide in our society. To do this, we need to force the current government to increasing investment in child and youth services again, as well as ensuring that education offsets the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children.

School and learning has proven to be the only true way to equality. If we do not give all children the benefit of good care and education from the earliest possible moment, we are doing them a disservice, and creating a problem that we, as a nation, might be unable to solve.

Food for thought indeed, until next time.

Elisa x