At the Social Mobility Commission we read the recent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) report on the impact of Sure Start with interest.
Sure Start, a network of children’s centres and services to support families with children under 5 that was introduced under a Labour government in 1998, is often held up as a forward-thinking idea that was abruptly ended.
But it’s worth noting that Sure Start is also a hugely misunderstood programme. As Naomi Eisenstadt, its first director, explained in a podcast for the Social Mobility Commission, it was very ambitious but also a bit chaotic.
Sure Start centres: the reality
From the word go, different ministers wanted different things from it. Then they couldn’t leave it alone and kept changing it. Having started as a focused programme, targeting improved outcomes for the most disadvantaged families, it quickly lost this focus as it expanded.
This made the scheme difficult to evaluate and left it open to criticism.
And by the time of the financial crisis in 2007-2008, and the ensuing reduction in public spending, the evidence of impact was not clear enough. Sure Start did not survive and was replaced by different approaches, including Family Hubs, which have similar aims but are delivered in a more focused and efficient way.
However, the IFS report has put Sure Start centres back in the spotlight. It says that during the first phase of the scheme from 1999-2003, those who lived within a short distance (2.5 kilometres) of a Sure Start centre for their first five years performed, on average, 0.8 grades better in one of their GCSEs.
The findings suggest that the impact was lasting, that the incidence of special educational needs was reduced, and that disadvantaged families benefited most.
This is very encouraging. As the report’s authors point out, it is largely consistent with a weighty international body of evidence, which all started with two robustly evaluated trials in the US, during the 1960s and early 70s.
It is no surprise, therefore, to see the reception that the IFS report has had, and the surge in support for the reintroduction of Sure Start.
Not an unqualified success
However, we need to keep our feet on the ground. As Paul Johnson, IFS director, commented, the research is clear about the benefits of the first phase of Sure Start, not the second phase, which was “an entirely different programme” and “much less effective”.
Further, while the report plausibly finds a causal link (rather than a correlation) between early Sure Start and improved outcomes, it remains unclear what specific elements led to this. Local programmes were not centrally directed, so the content in different places was not the same.
And there are some anomalies in the findings: the age at which the benefits appear to show in educational achievement; and the fact that the “academic effect is much larger for non-white students”. All of this still needs explaining.
The details of costs and benefits will be an area that a future government will want to scrutinise closely. There are also some aspects of the report that are less convincing, such as the calculations of the longer-term benefit in terms of employment.
The impact of Sure Start on future employment will be greater or smaller depending on a number of factors, including which GCSE grades were affected (Cs rather than Ds are better than Ds rather than Es), and which subjects the improved attainment was seen in (this was a period in time when the curriculum was being reformed because of too many low-value qualifications).
On the other hand, the benefits in terms of reducing the need for special educational needs provision and the well-established health benefits appear to be more concrete. And further work is being undertaken on the impact on youth offending.
Where do we go next?
As Johnson also argues, there is no shortage of investment in provision for young children. The problem is that it is mostly directed towards expanding childcare.
There are social mobility arguments for this - mainly around supporting both parents to return to work (the main beneficiaries usually being women).
But there are thin arguments for universal childcare improving the cognitive and non-cognitive development of children. As many specialists point out, this depends on whether provision embraces “what works” in child development, including partnerships with parents and a trained workforce.
And whatever is done with the findings of this report, one other extremely important factor will need to be taken into account.
Families are not the same in 2024 compared with 1999. As another recent IFS report highlights, we now have very different patterns of family formation for graduates compared with non-graduates. This is an area that the Social Mobility Commission is keen to understand much more about.
Overall, while there is definitely more to be learned from Sure Start than we thought, it is not a panacea.
It is not the whole programme that worked but parts of it. And we still need to be much clearer about which aspects were most valuable. Moreover, even a reformed Sure Start will not be enough on its own.
It would need to be accompanied by policies for families - and a recognition of the changing and complex nature of their make-up today.
Alun Francis is chair of the Social Mobility Commission
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