Nursery World - Rural Sure Start spread thin (1)

Sure Start programmes operating in rural areas of England face higher per capita costs and greater shortages of skilled staff than in urban areas, compounding the logistical difficulties of delivering services to scattered populations, according to a report from the Countryside Agency.

The report, Delivering services to children and families in rural areas: The early lessons from Sure Start, said that while most urban Sure Start programmes are targeted at neighbourhoods where a high proportion of children are living in poverty, 'in rural areas deprivation tends to be geographically scattered, which makes targeting much more difficult'.

The report examined the work and impact of ten programmes stretching from Northumberland to former mining villages in Derbyshire and China clay communities in Cornwall. It found the deprivation indices used to select urban areas for Sure Start with a focus on 'small, socially homogenous populations living in identifiable areas' did not apply to rural districts because of their social diversity.

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