For the past three years, funding cuts have meant that more than 400 centres have closed and many others have scaled down services. There have been protests by parents about the closures, and a sense of a service in decline.
So a rigorous debate about children's centres comes not a moment too soon. The NCB has commissioned five experts to provide different perspectives, and these make for fascinating reading.
As one of these experts, Lisa Harker says if children's centres were abolished and we asked 'What kind of programme could transform children's lives?', we would no doubt reinvent them.
And yet for all their successes, we would not reinvent them exactly as the programme evolved - too many very expensive, underused buildings; difficulties integrating health and education; and wrangles over universal versus targeted services.
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