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A Conservative blogger's visit to a Sure Start Centre - Part II: AFTER
Posted by Steve Conyers (@oxfordspring)
Wednesday, 10th February 2010
Last week I wrote an article that was critical of the running of the Sure Start program. It was based on reports, statistics and evaluations of the programs from independent third-party organisations and it was generally critical.
This article is based on my recent experience of visiting a Sure Start centre in a deprived area of Oxford.
A bit of background to the area: the council ward in which the centre is based is one of the most deprived in the country. In 2002, 30.68% of children were brought up in Low Income Households. Only 22.86% of pupils achieved 5 A* to C grades at GCSE in 2004. Compare that to North Oxford where the rate of children in Low Income Households was 0.64%, and 75% received A*-C. We must also bear in mind that the ward includes some quite affluent areas, throwing off the general statistics. It has almost double the levels of violent crime and anti-social behaviour of North Oxford. (Source: Oxford Data Observatory; NPIA)
These statistics are just the easiest way for me to explain the poverty on the estate when compared to the affluent areas just a 20 minute bus-ride away.
These were the reasons that back in 2001 it was opened as one of the pilots for the Sure Start scheme. It was one of the areas that needed it most.
So what did I think?
I have to admit that I stand the majority of my original article. This Sure Start centre, it was clear from the outset, was much needed and was hardly in an area that would attract the ‘slummy mummy’ that was referenced in my article.
This centre was clearly doing a lot of good. It was providing children a safe place to play, learn social skills and develop the beginnings of the education they were to start formally at the primary school next door. I could not doubt for a moment the dedication of the staff and helpers I met. All were clearly working wonders for the community. I was more impressed than I expected to be with their energy and enthusiasm.
But after a period of reflection, I feel that my visit was not wholly positive because I saw two major problems with the program as it is now. My councillor ‘tour-guide’ for the day, who knows the local area and people very well, and the staff at the centre are firm believers in Sure Start but I do not believe that there would be much of a point in writing this if I did not direct attention to the problems I saw.
The first was that, at the heart of it, I don’t believe that Sure Start knows what it wants to be. It was explained that the centre provided classes for mothers on pre-natal care, provision for father-child supervised contact, a health visitor, a BackToWork advisor, basic Arabic classes for parents, dance classes for parents, internet access for parents, a laundry. It seemed almost like the centre has become a catch-all for the local community: more of a Community Hub than the Children’s Centre it was designed to be. All these aims are perfectly valid – I can think of nothing better than helping young mothers who wish to back into work – but there was almost a sense that the children playing in the sandpit in the crèche were left behind.
Sure Start’s greatest aim was to provide a secure basis for children in the Early Years Foundation Stage, to give the worst off in society level playing ground when they moved on to primary school. Their play-room was wonderful, it had more toys than I had ever seen in my life, but there was very little direction to it. Even checks and statistics relating to child welfare, learning and obesity were not apparently being collected as they ought. I saw lots of happy young children, but they all seemed to be doing what they wanted to do, without any focus towards structured learning.
My second thought came to me as I was walking through the estate after the visit with the local councillor. A hundred yards away from the Sure Start centre was an old Scout Hut. The Scouts are long gone apparently; the general story of how in the last years the organisation has lost many of its volunteers and been held back by increasing bureaucracy is well known. While the Scout movement is hardly an equal comparison to the Sure Start program, the symbolism struck me. Where have all the small, community groups gone? Where are the amateur dramatics societies, the young groups, the boys’ brigades, the mother and toddler groups, the churches and church choirs?
That’s where real change happens: in the whole host of engaging, educating and inclusive groups where a community pulls together to drive forward change itself.
There is no social engineering, no top down initiatives and no set targets which are only ignored. The government has monopolised control over these basic services, and Sure Start could be an example. It was done with all the best intentions in the world; I do not deny that for a second. But, and here we get onto the big question, why should Government take over and pay for a sector which, given freedom, can manage itself? Yes, we need Sure Start centres to help develop young minds and to break the poorest out of the cycle of poverty in which many of them find themselves, but they cannot be seen as THE answer. Otherwise we will lose forever the community spirit, we will lose the vitality, originality and imagination of the voluntary sector and, on a basic economic level, we will pay more for less. Most importantly, the ownership of the solution needs to be by the people needing the help.
Sure Start does a lot of good, mainly due to the hard work and honest dedication of the workers and volunteers. But, as the project stands, it is not a viable long term solution to the problems it originally set out to resolve.
