Scrap EYFS and let local authorities fund Sure Start, think-tank says

Cutting the Children’s Plan recommends abolishing many of the programmes introduced under Labour to save £1.9 billion of the £5 billion 2010 – 2011 budget.

Responsibility for an extra £2.3 bn should be devolved to local government, leaving just £0.8bn with central government.

Programmes are ‘highly centralised’ and ‘over-bureaucratic’ and responsibility for many of them, including Sure Start, should be devolved to local councils, parents and schools, and targeted at the neediest families.

The report said, ‘A new Government committed both to devolving power and to reducing quangos and bureaucracy, should reassess the underlying approach to the Children’s Plan – and reform or abolish many of these expensive and ineffective programmes.’

It said all Sure Start centres should become self-funding but able to apply for annual local authority grants for the 10 per cent poorest families with pre-school children. This would reach around 300,000 families and save £835m.

The EYFS should be abolished, saving £315m a year, because  it is ‘questionable’ whether it encourages good practice or has had much practical effect.

‘For example in reading, Reception Year children now do pre-reading activities instead of learning to read through synthetic phonics. As a result, children from less stimulating environments waste an entire year, falling even further behind their middle-class peers, whose parents generally know better than to delay reading instruction, ' it said.

Other areas which should be axed include Play Strategy projects – described as ‘expensive luxuries’ - and playworker qualifications.

Funding for Aiming High for Disabled Children should not be cut but the money should be given directly to parents and carers ‘to use as they see fit’.

The only part of the Children’s Plan described as having potential is the Extended Schools programme, which should be made less bureaucratic with schools taking part also encouraged to raise their own funds as well as receiving central government funding, which should be cut  to reflect usage.

Jill Kirby, director of the Centre for Policy Studies, said, ‘The Children's Plan is a classic example of the failings of Big Government: billions of pounds wasted in pursuit of central targets, based on untested ideas and packaged in jargon and bureaucracy. The sooner these grandiose plans are abandoned in favour of practical, localised support to the most needy families, the better.’