Reading the editorial in yesterday’s Times newspaper (‘Politics ABC’) felt like stepping back before 1997 to the days when investment in childcare and the early years of a child’s life was viewed as either a luxury that could not be afforded or an issue of only marginal interest and outside the mainstream of political debate. With extensive evidence both internationally and at home – not least the recently-published Marmot review of health inequalities – putting the case for the early years beyond doubt, progressives could have been forgiven for believing this was an argument that had been won. It appears not.
The Times makes three points that cannot go unchallenged.
Firstly, Sure Start Children’s Centres are nothing more than “Middle class crèches”. Secondly, public spending has been skewed towards early years at the expense of higher education, which is stifling social mobility. And thirdly, it would be great to give every child a sure start in life “but something has to give”.
Sure Start Children’s Centres now provide a universal service to 3500 communities across England. The programme began in the poorest 10 per cent of areas, with a second phase in the 30 per cent poorest areas, and are now in the process of rolling out everywhere else. The universal starting point is important because not all challenges faced during the early years adhere to class boundaries – middle class mums can suffer with post-natal depression and middle class children can have developmental problems. Plus, creating a mixed community of service users means that parents and children from across social groups can learn from one another, building important social capital for otherwise isolated families.
However, whilst the Centres and their core provision are open to all under-fives in their area, that doesn’t mean that every family uses the Centres in the same way. Centres are also a hub for targeted services such as speech and language therapy or parenting support that are provided only to those parents or children who would benefit from them and Centres are now doing more work than ever to ensure the most vulnerable families are accessing the services through a developing programme of outreach.
The Times argues that increases in spending on the early years since 1997 – 6.7 per cent a year – have skewed spending on education, creating an “imbalance” with investment in higher education which they say has risen 2.7 per cent per year. What this analysis fails to recognise is the relative starting points. The Marmot review, which has been widely lauded, points out that whilst 8 per cent of education spending is spent on the early years, 35 per cent goes on post-16 education. Professor Marmot also sets out graphically the case that early years investment is the most effective in improving long-term outcomes and narrowing inequality. Without it, the poorest children get left behind and rarely catch up.
Despite most Sure Start Children’s Centres being less than five years old, they are already showing improvements in the number of children who are ‘school ready’ at age five and beginning to narrow the gap between the lowest achievers and the average, according to the National Audit Office. Social mobility will not be served by reducing universal investment in these crucial formative years and instead spending more on the relatively advantaged proportion of society who make it to university.
Finally, the proposition that giving every child a good start in life is a luxury we cannot afford. As progressives this is a notion we thoroughly reject. It is contrary to every value we hold but it is also a nonsense financially. The economic costs of social failure and inequality are well documented and consigning a proportion of children to a life of unrealised potential is not just an affront to a civilised society but will have large bill attached to it. Evaluations from the USA of their Head Start programme showed that for every $1 invested in young children $7 are saved in the future. Future evaluations of Sure Start Children’s Centres will show the same, if only they are given a proper chance to embed themselves. Now is not the time to pull the plug.