Built to last?

The need for joined-up thinking has been a recurring mantra under New Labour. Services like childcare must be integrated and targeted and funding arrangements streamlined, we are told, to maximise efficiency and effectiveness. And yet, according to the Daycare Trust, as one Government initiative has rolled out after another since Labour came to power in 1997, the number of separate strands of childcare funding has grown to more than 55. The many tributaries have never come together in a steady stream.

So there was understandable optimism among practitioners when Chancellor Gordon Brown announced in July's spending review that the Government was bringing together responsibility for childcare, early years and Sure Start within a single inter-departmental unit. He pledged to create children's centres to 'support the integration of good quality childcare with early years education, family support and health services' in the 20 per cent most disadvantaged areas, and to give local authorities an enhanced role in provision (see box for details) A DfES spokesman said, 'Children's centres will build on and bring together existing programmes like Sure Start, Early Excellence Centres and Neighbourhood Nurseries. The Government wants to develop a more coherent approach to the development and delivery of integrated services for young children and their families. Children's centres will be at the heart of this effort.'