The Tories’ evisceration of Sure Start should be a national scandal

Sure Start was the massive programme launched by New Labour in 1999 to help the poorest in the UK to get a better start in life. It poured money and resources into helping the under 5s from the poorest parts of society – the children and their families who had been ignored, dismissed, and abandoned for decades – and it was a huge success.

The latest research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has found that Sure Start “generated big improvements” in the school performance of children from low-income families, especially ones living near to Sure Start Centres which were set up at the very beginning of the programme. Children benefitted massively, in fact they “increased their performance at GCSE by three grades relative to similarly poor children who were not able to access Sure Start. “

Think about that for a moment. It means children who would have got two Cs and three Ds, getting five Cs. The changes in their lives were enormous, their chances of staying in education, and getting real employable skills, even going to university were greatly improved.

This is the sort of change that lifts a whole generation out of poverty, low pay, unskilled jobs, ill health and poor housing.

Between 1999 and 2010, Sure Start grew to become a network of fully coordinated policies offering ante- and post-natal health, support for families, early learning and childcare and even employment help for parents.

It wasn’t cheap, total spending was £2.5 billion a year by 2010; but just the savings to the NHS alone, through reduced hospitalisations, paid for a third of Sure Start. The higher levels of education also meant the whole policy paid for itself, because of higher earnings, and therefore higher taxes.
It was a win-win.

But then in 2010 the Tories got into power and that was it. There was no money to help the poor, the credit crunch having apparently been caused by too much money being spent on poor, disadvantaged children.

Spending to help the poor drag themselves up by their bootstraps was no longer affordable and since they got into power the Tories have cut spending on Sure Start by two-thirds. It is a pale shadow of what it used to be.
Hundreds of centres have been closed, as the government has instead concentrated on tax cuts for the rich and trickle-down economics.

A programme that was known to be working, which was changing the face of society and reaching the hardest to help, improving the health and wealth of the nation, helping those who needed those improvements more than anyone else, was eviscerated and destroyed.

Remember, Sure Start paid for itself by increasing wages and saving the NHS money. We now have a system which is costing more while also condemning whole generations to inherited poverty and poorer health.

Sure Start was a sure-fire success. Its evisceration should be a national scandal.

Recreating it should be a no-brainer, but don’t hold your breath.