§ Lord Northbourneasked Her Majesty's Government:
How much money has been allocated to funding (a) the construction of new children's centres; and (b) the running costs of new children's centres; and how many such centres will be built; and on what basis these funds are being allocated; and [HL5001]
Whether, when the responsibility for funding children's centres passes to local government in 2005, they will provide local government with any necessary additional funding; and, if not, what assurances they have that local government will be able and willing to provide the funds for capital works and running costs. [HL5002]
§ Lord FilkinThe Government's target is to provide children's centre services to 650,000 children by March 2006. To achieve this target, the Government have allocated local authorities £317.8 million in capital and £117.2 million in revenue funding to develop children's centres in the 20 per cent most disadvantaged areas. There will be few new purpose-built children's centres as the majority will be developed from existing provision such as Sure Start local programmes, neighbourhood nurseries, early excellence centres, maintained nursery schools and health centres. Similarly it is not possible to estimate annual running202WA costs as each will have wide-ranging annual running cost budgets. There are no plans to change the funding arrangements in 2005.
By 2008, the Government aim to create up to 2,500 children's centres and eventually to have one serving every community. Details of how the Government will achieve this and the funding arrangements will be part of the Government's 10-year childcare strategy, due to be published in December.