Education secretary Charles Clarke said, 'Children's Centres provide a single place for five key services - early education, childcare, health, family support and help into employment. The 32 centres we have identified today are the starting point for a network that we want to see spread across the country.'
Newly-appointed children's minister Margaret Hodge said, 'We have named the best joined- up early years services as Sure Start Children's Centres and they will act as a model to transform future provision for young children and families.'
The 32 centres announced last week include three in Leeds, two in Blackpool and eight around London, including the Thomas Coram Early Childhood and Family Centre in Bloomsbury and the New River Green centre in Islington, as well as the Pen Green centre in Corby, Northamptonshire.
The Parklands early years centre in Leeds previously formed an early excellence network with the East Leeds and Seacroft centres, and now all three have been designated children's centres.
Kay Kendall, manager of the Parklands centre, said its transformation 'reinforces the fact that providing a wide range of services to children and families in one location has got to be the way forward'.
The centre, which is open from 8am to 6pm year round, has 74 full-time equivalent nursery places, and a range of services for parents including free toddler groups, access to a counsellor three days a week, infant massage and cooking groups to give advice on children's diets.
The Daycare Trust said that children's centres were 'an idea whose time has come'. Director Stephen Burke said, 'Universal children's centres are key to the Government delivering on its ambitious drive to end child poverty and create a better, fairer Britain. We now have an unprecedented opportunity to fulfil that ambition.'
The Kids' Clubs Network, which aims to create 100 children's centres over the next three years through its own programmes, welcomed 'the Government's ongoing commitment to invest in high-quality childcare coupled with major support for families'.
Chief executive Anne Longfield said the announcement was 'particularly important for the thousands of lone parents and families in poverty who want to work but currently can't due to the lack of childcare'.
