The Government’s new childcare report was launched last week by Elizabeth Truss MP Parliamentary Under-Secretary for State (education and childcare) and generated quite a flurry of twittering.

However I feel it merits a deeper look, especially as I have had to tolerate articles produced by ill-informed journalists and commentators all weekend pronouncing on this report from a position of ignorance. It’s true the Minister shares laudable ambitions with the sector, not least the view that:

Every parent wants the best for their child. They expect childcare to be safe and of good quality, because high quality childcare promotes children’s development in the early years. The availability of affordable, safe and stimulating care is crucial in supporting families by enabling parents to work. It is equally crucial to the development of babies and young children as the foundation for their future success at school and in life.

(Childcare report, 2013).

However, it is the Minister’s rather clumsy attempt to use same single stone to solve the complex issues of childcare costs and quality that is her undoing. The report is her response to two reviews; the Nutbrown Review which examined the robustness of childcare qualifications and the Childcare Commission which looked at cost of childcare.

By using the same stone, the Minister risks killing both birds (the issues of childcare qualifications and the cost of childcare). The problem is the birds are very different; one a swan and the other a skylark. The swan represents childcare for parents, helping them glide into their return to work and masking all the busy paddling underneath to balance the often competing challenges of the working parent.  The skylark on the other hand is high quality childcare, which helps children soar, find their voice and expand their horizons. Re-read Gerard Manley Hopkins‘ beautiful poem The Caged Skylark which captures the consequences of being caged and trapped.

I have tried to simplify the report by highlighting what I consider the eight key points:

1. We need more qualified staff to improve the status and quality of the workforce.

Indeed we do. We have been saying this for an age, and fully support Professor Nutbrown. However, 84% staff have level 3 diploma so let’s not demotivate them.

2. Many staff lack basic skills, so the entry level will include English and Maths A to C.

I agree.  Again we have been saying this for a long time and I recall being lambasted for suggesting such. I continue to believe we need to introduce basic teaching for staff, so they spell and clearly articulate in a grammatically correct way.  How can children learn a minimum of 5000 words if staff cannot string a sentence together? What are some schools doing I wonder??

3. Introduce Early Years Teachers.

OK, but make sure we don’t abandon the 11,000 EYPs and ensure all graduate staff are able to complete this if they want. Most staff cannot afford post graduate training. Employers cannot fund this either, as about 70% do not expect to make any profit this year according to NDNA Business Survey.

4. Deregulate so we can decrease the number of staff to children, particularly under 3s. This means up to one staff member with 6 toddlers and 1 staff member with 4 babies. There are provisos to applying these ratios, such as needing a qualified staff member. A consultation will be launched to decide what qualifications staff should have and the findings will be implemented in September 2013.

This will lead to big problems, not least in the UK where education is child led and based on quality of engagement and suitable environment. There is a genuine fear that we may see lines of chairs with children strapped in for large portions of the day. In addition there are real risks of accidents and an increase in stress levels for both children and members of staff. Children coming from poor families are at particular risk. We know the right pedagogical approach ensures we can play a huge role in helping them soar like skylarks. I could go on…

5. Reduced ratios will mean we can charge less to parents and free up more places.

We absolutely cannot make the figures work here. Reducing the number of staff will only affect the quality of output and standards (see above point).

6. Ofsted is now the sole barometer of quality.

Risky it offers little more than a snapshot once every 47 months.

7. Set up Childminders’ Agencies like Denmark.

I know little about this except Denmark found its methods were cumbersome and expensive and are changing their model.  Ask Birgitte Nyborg from Borgen!

8. Make it easier for schools to take younger children.

Why? Being in school does not in itself guarantee quality. Is this a move towards universal childcare? Better check on the Nursery Education Grant rates then, as schools may prove quite expensive.

So there is much to debate, and I would urge we all respond to the consultation. In the meantime, I would challenge the Minister to continue investigating how the full £5 - £7 billion is spent on childcare (it seems the figure changes depending where you read it). Page 16 of the childcare report is too vague in my opinion.

In the meantime, perhaps those of you caring for under threes should consider recruiting Michael Rosen‘s Mary Anne…

She would leave the room
And you wouldn’t mind
But then you’d discover
She’d left her eyes behind

 However even Mary Anne could not keep up the pace (no matter her qualifications)…

It was a terrible shame
That it was all so drastic
But that’s what happens
When you are made of elastic!

Michael Rosen, Book of Nonsense

I am a nervous passenger generally, but my anxiety rises to a whole new level when we go on the motorway.

My coping mechanism is to work on my computer to avoid spending the whole journey gripped in a panic that we are about to crash into the lorry ahead. The upside is that I get time to trawl through my documents and keep calm. Meanwhile, the driver (usually my husband) is able to concentrate on the road, rather than having to continually threaten to throw me out. The downside is that I come across speeches, articles and blog entries which all smack of Déjà Vu.

This week was a case in point, as I found myself preparing a speech on leadership in the sector and a presentation for some funds to help us grow the business. As I began the process by finding similar speeches for inspiration, I was shocked to discover so many of the issues facing us today were exactly the same as far back as 2007. I know they say that change takes time, but this seems excessively slow.

So I thought it might serve as a fun game, as we head into the Jubilee-free weekend, to remind ourselves of the state of play and key issues back then, to see how much if anything has changed:

• Universal child care was inadequately funded
• It was felt that children should not go to school aged four (a sentiment supported by the Children and Young People Select Committee and National Primary Headteachers Association)
• Ofsted was looking at its approach to inspection
• I was arguing that Children’s Centres should be a hub for intergenerational work, with young and old learning together and developing relationships that could help achieve community cohesion
• We were awaiting a Government re-shuffle
• A Two Year Old Pilot was in discussion
• Unhappy economic times were beginning, and talk of solutions and sustainability were beginning to quietly emerge
• We had just taken our first group of apprentices called NEETs
• Action for Children and New Economics Foundation produced a fascinating report called Backing the Future, setting out a plan to save the UK taxpayer £486 billion over 20 years and dramatically improve social wellbeing
• According to economic analyst Rob Grunewald, (video here), if Government invested substantially in parenting and enriched daycare, they could expect a rate of return (in monetary terms) of between 3:1-7:1, and 17:1 by the time the child reaches 21years. He explained that social benefits were also significant, with a reduction in crime and prison, better educational attainment, healthier adults and reduced levels of obesity and a reduction in welfare dependency
• The Cambridge Primary Review was challenging the notion of school readiness in their final report, reminding us of what Froebel said 250 years before – namely that Early Years was not a time to merely prepare for school, but a distinct phase to be celebrated and enjoyed in its own right
• Remaining stubbornly high, child poverty was on the rise despite all attempts to reduce it – including provision of flexible work opportunities, training, childcare, improved incentives and investment in child benefit
• Limited funds were available to provide a quality workforce, including employing many more graduates
• Transitions to school were an issue

Peter Drucker said that management has no choice but to anticipate the future. Well then, we better start looking at the past, because the blueprint is already there. And as a leader, it’s probably wise to get organisations fit to manage the continual challenges that are not easily solved and are more entrenched than we could possibly imagine. Learning from experience is not enough.

Therefore, I’d suggest that one solution may be to create a learning organisation that can flex and re-shape, according to both the fast and slow pace of change. Consider the following ten steps, and maybe in this instance a bit of repeat, recall and déjà vu will be a good thing:

• Learning is incorporated into everything people do
• Learning for learning’s sake is encouraged and celebrated
• Teamwork, creativity, empowerment and quality are fully supported
• Staff are trusted and encouraged to choose and take decisions
• People with different job titles learn together
• Coaching relationships are promoted to enhance learning
• Learning is an integral part of meetings, work groups and work processes
• Everyone in the organisation has equal access to learning
• Mistakes are embraced as learning opportunities
• Cross-training is encouraged and staff that learn a broad range of skills rewarded
• Continuous learning is considered a shared core value of the organisation

Do you agree with the above?  Let me know what you think in the space below.

This week I went to visit Dara Hogan at Fledglings Nurseries, part of An Cosán, a community organisation and charity in Tallaght, Co Dublin.  I was accompanied by Heather Fernandez, our lead Research Associate on social franchising, scaling and replication, with Middlesex University.

The term franchising freaks many people out because they associate it with aggressive, profit-focused commercial growth like McDonalds. Instead, I like the opportunity it presents as a business model with the potential to help replicate good, socially enterprising nurseries across the UK.  In doing so, many more children would benefit, more quickly and effectively, and greater strides could be taken toward eradicating child poverty; hence our research.

It is also the shared view of Dara Hogan who I met on a Scaling Up programme run by the School of Social Entrepreneurs in January this year.  He has set up five nurseries in this deprived part of Dublin, on the basis that good quality Early Years can help mitigate some of the worst aspects of social deprivation and potential educational failure.   Like me, he thinks franchising may be a good model to speed up the dissemination of good nurseries and touch the lives of many more children, and so he is in the process of growing the nursery group.

The Irish are renowned for their friendliness and hospitality and this was very evident during our visit.  We were taxied around Dublin by Denis, who gave us a guide to each locality and pointed out a range of areas of interest from a political and social perspective.  He could compete with London’s best Black Cab drivers with his knowledge of heritage sites in central Dublin.

Our programme of visits was wide and varied, but each person gave generously of their time and engaged in a way that made us feel we had something to offer them – although at times I could see their puzzlement, as we tried to understand the different ways we design and support similar services.

The social problems of Dublin and London are not dissimilar; drugs and alcohol abuse, unemployment, poverty and emotional deprivation are the issues of the day, and the people we visited are looking for solutions that work just as we are, solutions that can be scaled up and measured to show a benefit, both now and in the future.

Our two day visit began in Tallaght with a visit was to Breda at Barnardos. She runs a Government funded childcare and family support programme in a building down a littered windswept alley.  Her passion and enthusiasm was palpable, and she could link to the work being done in the UK through her daughter – an educational psychologist in Southwark who had been challenging her to dump the notion of school readiness in favour of ready schools.  It initiated an interesting philosophical debate. She was keen on giving a voice to the practitioner, whilst also finding a way to support free childcare for more two year olds.  I was pleased to be able to say that we were going to develop this in the UK as a result of a successful pilot.  She introduced me to Maria Aarts and Marte Meo and was as shocked that I had not heard of her as I was when she told me that Irish Barnardos were not in anyway connected to the UK charity.

Our second visit was to a very modern, architect designed building which housed the Childhood Development Initiative.  We were welcomed with a pot of tea by Grainne Smith and her colleagues Marguerite and Tara.  They are part of a commissioning and evaluation team developing childcare initiatives, funded by government and matched charity funds. We had a lively conversation about evaluations and randomised control trials of organisations and services with a heavy emphasis on evaluating process.  I was particularly intrigued to hear this, as it’s something I am keen to develop as part of our multi-generational project.

After a lunch which included homemade scones, we spoke to Jean Courtney who confirmed the importance of business skills among childcare providers in all sectors, but especially in areas where the continued success of nurseries and family support services is particularly needed by children.

Our last visit took us into the centre of Dublin, where we had a tremendously animated conversation with Beth Fagan who runs the Parent Child Home Programme  at the National College of Ireland.  She was passionate about helping parents apply learning in their homes, so we know it changes their beliefs, behaviour and attitude, and pointed us in the direction of much new reading.  It also led to a proposal for her colleague Aoife, who heads up the CPD programme, that we try and apply the same thinking when it comes to making sure we better embed and measure action learning in childcare settings – so we know the training and support we offer practitioners is actually embedded and applied consistently to ultimately change behaviour (a philosophy already very much embedded in the LEYF approach to learning and development).

Dara rounded off the long and fascinating visit with a dinner prepared by his good wife Mary.  It made me realise why hospitality needs to be a core value of any organisation looking to reach out and make a difference to those who feel alienated and isolated.

Our second day was spent at An Cosán, the umbrella charity which incubated the Fledglings idea.  Its main service is to provide training at all levels for local people, with a real emphasis on opportunities and learning for local women – so they were very hot on community leadership and ways of empowering women to develop their confidence and abilities.  Once again, the day was punctuated by hospitality and kindness – and more scones!  We learned a lot more about the importance of talking and extending ideas, as I had some passionate exchanges with their lively CEO Liz Waters.  It was a another great lesson in the importance of taking time out of the ordinary day to engage with other people; to stretch your thinking and learn something new.

The last few weeks have been a bit of an intellectual whirlwind, which always gets me really excited.  So for those people who think working with children is all about being nice and patient (and washing your hands a lot), it actually provides a platform for a great deal of intellectual challenge.

On Thursday 19^th May, I got to hear Professor James J Heckman expounding his theories on the importance of investing in the Early Years at the Daycare Trust Lecture organised to celebrate their 25th anniversary. It was a fascinating romp through 40 years worth of research, which continues to show how investing in the Early Years makes sense for the child, the family, the community and society. Two facts in particular resonated powerfully with me; firstly that children’s social and emotional skills are most potent when it comes to extending children’s cognitive development; and secondly adversity gets under the skin and determines the child’s biology.

Heckman also drew a gasp from the audience with his findings that by year three, children from ‘welfare’ families had 500 words, those from working class families had 700 and children from professional families had 1100. What more can you say here, other than parents really need to be made aware of this, so they can do something to address the issue. He then concluded by reminding us that ‘top-up’ programmes for literacy and numeracy in schools had no measureable benefit, nor did reducing the numbers of children in school classes. Instead, what really counted was giving children the best experience before they turned three.

Earlier that same day, I had the pleasure of a cup of tea with the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove. In these straitened times, I suspected we might have a cup of tea in the hand. My mother first experienced this when I came to live in London, and she never could understand that you could drink tea without a plate of something to go with it. I have inherited this habit, so asked our children to help out – which under the tutelage of Feyi from our Marsham Street community nursery team, led to fresh batch of tasty banana biscuits! Suitably nourished, our conversation focused a lot on the importance of Early Years – in particular the youngest children and the significance of what we at LEYF call cultural capital. Professor Heckman reinforced the same, with the articulacy that so many Americans possess, and I hope Mr Gove’s team share.

Later in the week, I was able to push again for investment in the Early Years at a Dragon’s Den type experience where six social enterprises pitched to about 50 investors; an event organised by Clearly So and hosted by Coutts. We were trying to persuade investors to support our growth plans with investment that balanced straight financial returns with a social premium return.  It was very scary, not only since I was on first and the only woman, but also as I had to do this in 5 minutes. Somehow I managed to do both, whilst at the same time mingling with bankers and investors in Coutts’ august headquarters. Interestingly, the venue itself was the Coutts library, bequeathed by Angela Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906), granddaughter of Thomas Coutts, founder of the bank.  More importantly, Angela was a great Victorian philanthropist, setting up Ragged Schools for poor children; she was also instrumental in founding the NSPCC. Personally, I love being somewhere which has the hand of a great woman on it!  They also have piped poetry in the bathrooms, which I thought was quite wonderful, so I will be checking out if we could do this at LEYF - with a few nursery rhymes thrown into the mix!

The entire experience and subsequent conversations make it clear that a fresh and full debate is needed, exploring the complex world of social investment with a view to developing some sort of fund, underpinned with a clear and philosophical set of principles, specifically geared to drive more investors into this area. We have to move from an ideology of charitable donation to social investment, with a longer-term look rather than an immediate feel good. My previous bedside reading (the enjoyable Larkrise to Candleford by Flora Thompson) has now been replaced with books about investment and may soon, I fear, also have to include those about tax options for social investors. Who says you never stop learning? Or as Francis Bacon said, a wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. I for one hope this is an opportunity.

I finally concluded a busy week by spending a lively day with the team in our Centre for Research, Learning and Development.  It was a bit of a roller coaster of a day, as we shaped a clear business plan for the year ahead, with the team learning the stark financial realities of running a training business in an economic downturn. Former Head of Children’s Services at LEYF and now Lead for Quality, Learning & Development, Gary Simpson gave us the gem of a quote from Dolly Parton with which we all headed into the sunset:

The way I see it is, if you want a rainbow, you gotta  put up with the rain.”

I have learned that if I am to truly avoid all contact with the world of work, then I need to go abroad without a phone or internet access.  To this end, I recently spent a lovely few days immersed in the renaissance art of Florence.

On my return came the announcement that the Department of Education had allocated £60m of hard earned tax payers’ money to over 100 so-called voluntary and community organisations. The serenity of the Botticellis soon evaporated into a sort of Sir Henry Taylor level of gall and indignation – as his saying ‘where there are large powers with little ambition, nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes’ came rapidly to mind.

Why was I feeling so cross? Principally because the purpose of the grants was to enable organisations to play a more significant role in reforming and delivering services for children, young people, parents and families – and with a particular emphasis on early intervention and tackling the needs of the most disadvantaged groups. What weasel words.  Is this not another way of wasting our time and effort, whilst looking at ways of cutting funds for children services.  Funding the usual suspects is hardly an innovative way forward.

Maybe I am being unfair, but in these difficult times – where organisations like mine are losing significant contracts to provide for children in need and run children centre services – it’s hard to stomach sums of over £100k plus being allocated to endless support organisations, many of which should be partnered up and formed into single entities.  According to the department, the aim of these grants is to free organisations up from dependency on grants… well there is little need to become sustainable if all the central costs are funded by tax payers.  What is the point of the Transition Funds? Was this not designed to support such organisations become sustainable? In my book, that’s £160m of money that could be better spent providing real services to children and their families.

I was also baffled and bemused by the other big decision (worth £1m over two years), which saw the strategic lead partnership for the early years and childcare sector allocated to a group of organisations, none of which are either specifically early years or childcare. I suppose what galled me more was how this would pay for at least 65 full daycare places with family support in my organisation for vulnerable children in high need. Instead, this is something we currently have to raise our own funds for, since such children not yet on the Child Protection list no longer constitute high priority. So much for applying the principles of early intervention…

The allocation of all this money is supposed to develop a vigorous and responsive sector, freed up from the dependency on grants and better equipped to operate within a payment by results environment; it is meant to make such organisations commissioning ready and look at innovative approaches to lever private investment. What strikes me is there is quite a tension and I will be intrigued to understand how organisations funded by the department can offer independence, challenge and innovation. Let’s only hope Jonathan Swift’s comment that ‘power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent’ remains high in all our minds.

Alongside the delight of being Chief Executive of LEYF, I am also chair of Paddington Farm Trust.  Established as a charity 20 years ago and now operating as a social enterprise, the Trust provides farm holidays and educational activities for people living in poor urban areas (people more typically disadvantaged by poor physical health, mental illness, economic pressures or simply life circumstances).  The farm itself is based in Somerset and was donated to a group of far-seeing community activists from Paddington at the end of the reign of the GLC; Big Society already successfully at work back in the 1980s.

So this weekend, my fellow trustees and I worked on the annual strategy; and most importantly focused on how we can make up the shortfall from losing our grant which previously made up 12% of our income.  On top of that, we are equally unsure how many of our regular visiting groups (themselves supported by their local authorities) will cease to visit.

Whilst a holiday may well be seen as a luxury in these austere times, supporting the fragile wellbeing of lonely, elderly poor people, those coping with mental or ill health and those recovering from drug and alcohol dependency (not to mention children of all ages from ugly concrete inner city estate) is critical.  Many of these people are already suffering the consequences of a lack of early intervention and have seen their lives unravel by circumstances out of their control.  Few of us are ever more than a few small steps away from disaster; we all try to organise our lives to avoid it, but some have no margin in the face of such overwhelming obstacles.  Last year’s Marmot Report confirmed the five key indicators which could help predict future health: life expectancy, disability-free life expectancy, child development at five, young people out of work and households on means-tested benefits. The report examined local authority data and found inequalities in all areas, leading the government to announce a desire to improve the health of the vulnerable. Quite right; so don’t limit their chance of having a holiday with such huge benefits, from better health to learning new skills.

Back at LEYF, we have always taken a group of up to twelve children to the farm for five days without their parents. The holidays have been universally successful, and the benefits to children and their parent(s) huge. We have never had to come back early and the trust between parents, children and staff has been wonderful; a very clear example of Big Society in action.  Recently, however, we have found it harder to get parents to agree to the ‘risk’ of allowing their children to go on such a break.  Caught between guilt and anxiety, they have reluctantly rejected the offer – not least worried they will be seen as bad parents if anything goes wrong.  Is it any wonder?  Today’s parents are constantly scrutinised by the press, the government and statutory agencies – and so many have lost their self-confidence to do what feels right for them and their children.  In addition, they are operating within an invidious horribleness (again perpetrated by mainstream media), that adults who work with children are closet paedophiles who, given half the chance, would harm their sons or daughters. The shocking truth is that actually children are at much greater risk of harm from within their own family.  What we really need is to put more faith in the fortitude of warm, trusting individual relationships as the basis for more positive human relationships in general.

I left the farm more determined than ever.  And then listening to Radio 4 on my way back, an interview with Francis Maude MP challenged him with the findings of a survey in the Independent on Sunday, proclaiming that while 67% of people had heard of the Big Society, 41% thought it was a cover up for cuts to public sector services.  Is this right?

I had just been on the farm with a bunch of volunteers like Steve, who is designing and building an outdoor classroom from trees in our coppice, which in turn were planted by volunteers from BTCV.  None of them needed encouragement to give their time so generously; they already wanted to give something back to society.

Despite its social enterprise business model, the farm is under pressure because we simply don’t know if we can rely on some of our regular customer groups. LEYF is also facing cuts in contracts for children in need, leaving us nearly one million pounds short this year. But will these cuts affect our attitude to Big Society – or will it simply make us more enterprising and determined; angry and more relentless in our fight for what we believe to be human rights?  It’s hard to say right now, but while I am surrounded by people who are altruistic and unselfish, my spirit remains uplifted and I will continue to find ways to overcome the inhibiting attitudes and self-fulfilling prophecies of the doom and gloom brigade.

Related articles

• Cameron not for turning on plans for Big Society (independent.co.uk)
• PM launches Big Society fightback (bbc.co.uk)
• Cameron’s “big society” relaunch repeats old errors (newstatesman.com)
• Have no doubt, the big society is on its way | David Cameron (guardian.co.uk)

We are already halfway through January, having returned from a long break to the order and pattern that work gives us. We have cheerily greeted everyone with a Happy New Year, but will it be?

As an optimistic person, I try to see challenges as opportunities, although at times this takes a huge leap of imagination and positive energy.  This is especially true now, with the doom and gloom harbingers out in force.  Of course, the press itself is less than helpful, setting the seeds for dissatisfaction and disorder; but in doing so, the more important issues all too easily risk being crowded out by a sense of general dismay.

But where to begin?  Without a doubt, saving Children’s Centres… Already this month, I have received impassioned telephone calls and frustrated emails from people about their local authorities not only halving Children’s Centres, but with limited consultation and no apparent plan.

I visited a small Centre in West London myself this week, only to then hear they were to be closed.  This particular school-based site had the complete support of both parents and head-teacher, and the team itself was coherent and robust about the benefits to local families.  They were equally realistic about the need to shift some ways of working and extend their services out.  Cuts aside, I simply cannot believe that local authorities are unable to afford an investment of £100k per annum in their multi-million pound budget (surely little more than the salary for one over-inflated management post).

Elsewhere, I attended the inaugural Home Start Lecture, where Professor Michael Marmot spoke about health inequalities and the investment needed to secure a more Fair Society, Healthy Lives for children. I asked the panel’s designated Cabinet Minister, Francis Maude, why in the light of all the evidence for preventative and community based services, Children Centres were closing. He simply fudged the issue by reasserting the Government position, namely how they were champions of Children Centres, but it was down to local authorities to make the decisions.

I thought of a recent book I read called Nudge and wondered how we might get the Government to give a nudge.  It’s true, we don’t want another micro-managing government (our last experience of this was unhelpful enough), but now baby and bathwater come to mind. In the meantime, Children Centres are closing and the consequences will come back to haunt us.  Will we ever learn?

Our colleauges over at 4Children made a great start last year with their Shout Out campaign, but I personally believe the time has come for us to finally wake up and actually do something about this emerging catastrophe for children and families, especially across the capital. We need to mobilise ourselves and take action as a determined network of passionate and committed Children Centre professionals.

It’s true that some Children’s Centres are better than others and some will have to go.  But that doesn’t mean reduced budgets cannot be resolved in a way that is planned, purposeful and sensitive to local communities.  Slash and burn is too random (and lazy) an approach.  As the picture of cuts continues to take shape, it seems incumbent on us to hatch a much-needed plan for survival, sustainability and reshaping; and one finally based around an intergenerational model.  We need to snatch the Children’s Centre baton and lead the process ourselves.

The time for talk may well be over, but please do comment and tweet us!  This is more than a nudge; this is a call to arms.

Related Articles

• Children’s centres ‘under threat’ (bbc.co.uk)
• Sure Start good for families and for children’s health, say researchers (guardian.co.uk)
• Sure Start centres’ funding cut (bbc.co.uk)