Nursery World - Sure Start - City of Westminster - Committed to a new vision for teamwork

In this new series Mary Evans takes an in-depth look at how cuts to local authority budgets are affecting children's centre services on the ground.

Battle lines are being drawn up across the country as parents and early years practitioners campaign to protect local children's centres from proposals to axe their funding and services.

Many of the country's 3,600 Sure Start children's centres, which were a major driver in New Labour's flagship policy to eradicate child poverty and reduce inequality, are facing uncertain futures.

Across the country, local authorities are taking different approaches to the funding crisis.

Some are introducing plans to shed staff, or cut services, merge or even shut children's centres in order to meet the public spending cuts imposed by the Chancellor, George Osborne.

Westminster City Council has pledged to keep all 12 of its children's centres open, but with a radical re-shaping of the service. It is reorganising the provision into three clusters, with three lead or hub centres and nine smaller satellites. Centres are still waiting to hear officially whether they have been selected to be the hub centre in their particular locality.

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