The review by the council's overview and scrutiny panel found that an average of 60 per cent of all children in the local authority area are registered with children's centres, and that registration is mostly carried out by community health staff visiting new parents.
However, the review found evidence that centres in more affluent areas had much higher levels of engagement than those in the most deprived areas. In Easington, which the report said was the most deprived area in the locality, only 40 per cent of children had contact with their local children's centre.
If Durham's 43 children's centres and 17 outreach centres could be given information about live births, then registration and contact could be carried out simultaneously, said the report.
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