If this date was chosen to avoid drawing media attention to its valuable findings, then DfE failed in its aim. Both the Guardian and the Independent have since highlighted positive impacts on families identified in this study, which over a two year period explored multiple effects of children’s centre services on young families in the most disadvantaged areas.
Crucially, centres where budgets were maintained or increased and services expanded during the evaluation period achieved better outcomes than those that were experiencing budget cuts and restructuring. More than a quarter of the 177 centres studied had experienced either or both of these negative pressures on their services. As the information for this part of the evaluation was collected between 2011 and 2013, these findings gains added significance in the light of continuing major cuts to children's centre budgets.
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