§ Charlotte AtkinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many Sure Start programmes have been(a) established and (b) proposed by local district authorities in England and Wales; and which of these address (i) urban deprivation, (ii) rural deprivation and (iii) semi-rural deprivation. [140675]
§ Yvette CooperI have been asked to reply.
This answer refers to England only, as Sure Start in Wales is a devolved issue and a matter for the Welsh Assembly. To date in England, 122 Sure Start programmes have been established in areas of disadvantage, with a further 72 under development. Sure Start programmes are not 'proposed' by local district authorities. Rather, districts with high levels of deprivation are identified and local partnerships in these 824W areas, comprising of representatives from statutory, voluntary and community bodies, are invited to develop a Sure Start programme in their area. The 194 programmes referred to above are in the 152 local authority districts in England listed and are located in all types of area: urban; semi-urban; semi-rural and rural. Sure Start programmes are targeted on the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods and thus all address deprivation. The following table indicates the type of district in which Sure Start programmes are located, although the nature of the Sure Start catchment area may differ from that of the district as a whole.
825W
District Number of Sure Start programmes to date District Type Birmingham 3 Urban Bradford 3 Urban Kingston Upon Hull 3 Urban Leeds 3 Urban Leicester 3 Urban Liverpool 3 Urban Manchester 3 Urban Sheffield 3 Urban Barnsley 2 Coalfields Blackburn with Darwen 2 Urban Brent 2 Urban Bristol 2 Urban Camden 2 Urban Derby 2 Urban Doncaster 2 Urban Hackney 2 Urban Halton 2 Urban Haringey 2 Urban Hartlepool 2 Urban Knowsley 2 Urban Lambeth 2 Urban Middlesbrough 2 Urban Newcastle 2 Urban Newham 2 Urban Nottingham 2 Urban Rotherham 2 Urban Salford 2 Urban Sandwell 2 Urban Sefton 2 Urban Southwark 2 Urban Stoke-on-Trent 2 Urban Sunderland 2 Urban Tower Hamlets 2 Urban Wolverhampton 2 Urban Allerdale 1 Semi-urban Ashfield 1 Semi-urban Barking and Dagenham 1 Urban Barrow-in-Furness I Urban Bassetlaw 1 Semi-urban Berwick-upon-Tweed 1 Rural Blackpool 1 Urban Blyth Valley 1 Semi-urban Bolsover 1 Coalfield Bolton 1 Urban Boston 1 Rural Bournemouth 1 Urban Brighton and Hove 1 Urban Bromley 1 Urban Burnley 1 Urban Bury 1 Urban Calderdale 1 Urban Cannock Chase 1 Semi-urban Chesterfield 1 Coalfields Chester-le-Street 1 Coalfields Copeland 1 Coalfields Corby 1 Coalfields Coventry 1 Urban
826W
District Number of Sure Start programmes to date District Type Croydon 1 Urban Darlington 1 Urban Derwentside 1 Coalfields Dover 1 Urban Dudley 1 Urban Ealing 1 Urban Easington 1 Coalfields East Lindsey 1 Rural East Riding of Yorkshire 1 Rural East Staffordshire 1 Semi-Urban Ellesmere Port and Neston 1 Semi-Urban Enfield 1 Urban Fenland 1 Rural Gateshead 1 Urban Gloucester 1 Urban Great Yarmouth 1 Urban Greenwich 1 Urban Hammersmith and Fulham 1 Urban Harlow 1 Urban Hastings 1 Urban Havant 1 Urban Havering 1 Urban Herefordshire 1 Rural Hillingdon 1 Urban Hounslow 1 Urban Hyndburn 1 Urban Ipswich 1 Urban Isle of Wight 1 Semi-Rural Islington 1 Urban Kensington and Chelsea 1 Urban Kerrier 1 Semi-rural Kings Lynn and West Norfolk 1 Rural Kirklees 1 Urban Lancaster 1 Semi-rural Lewisham 1 Urban Lincoln 1 Urban Luton 1 Urban Mansfield 1 Coalfields Medway Towns 1 Urban Milton Keynes 1 Urban Newark and Sherwood 1 Semi-Urban North Devon 1 Rural North East Lincolnshire 1 Urban North Lincolnshire 1 Urban North Tyneside 1 Urban Northampton 1 Urban Norwich 1 Urban Nuneaton and Bedworth 1 Semi-Urban Oldham 1 Urban Oswestry 1 Rural Oxford 1 Urban Pendle 1 Urban Penwith 1 Semi-rural Peterborough 1 Urban Plymouth 1 Urban Portsmouth 1 Urban Preston 1 Urban Reading 1 Urban Redbridge 1 Urban Redcar and Cleveland 1 Coalfields Restorme 1 Semi-rural Rochdale 1 Urban Rossendale 1 Semi-Urban Scarborough 1 Semi-rural Sedgefield 1 Coalfields Sedgemoor 1 Rural Shepway 1 Urban Slough 1 Urban Solihull 1 Urban South Tyneside 1 Urban Southampton 1 Urban Southend-on-Sea 1 Urban
District Number of Sure Start programmes to date District Type St Helens 1 Urban Stockport 1 Urban Stockton-on-Tees 1 Urban Swindon 1 Urban Tameside 1 Urban Telford & Wrekin 1 Urban Tendring 1 Semi-rural Thanet 1 Semi-rural Thurrock 1 Urban Torbay 1 Semi-rural Wakefield 1 Urban Walsall 1 Urban Waltham Forest 1 Urban Wandsworth 1 Urban Wansbeck 1 Coalfields Warrington 1 Urban Waveney 1 Semi-rural Wealden 1 Semi-rural Wear Valley 1 Coalfields West Lancashire 1 Semi-urban Westminster 1 Urban Wigan 1 Urban Wirral 1 Urban Note:
The district classification used is based on a simplified version of the ONS classification of districts
§ Charlotte AtkinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what evaluation he has made of the Sure Start programme. [140677]
§ Yvette CooperI have been asked to reply.
The Sure Start programme is based on evidence of what works in improving the health and well-being of young children, so that they will be ready to succeed when they start school. It is a cornerstone of the Government's drive to tackle child poverty and long term social exclusion. The evidence for Sure Start has been drawn from other countries, as there has been no other similar programme in this country.
The Government are committed to undertaking a long term, wide ranging national evaluation of the Sure Start programme in England. The Sure Start Unit is in the process of commissioning this from independent, external experts and work will begin in January 2001. The evaluation will look at the extent to which Sure Start makes a difference to children, families and communities in the short, medium and long term. It will attempt to establish what works, why, how and under what circumstances. The evaluation will also look at how cost effective the Sure Start programme is. A large sample of children will be tracked over time to see whether and how Sure Start has improved outcomes for them in later life.
In addition, each local programme will evaluate its own activities and monitor its progress towards national targets and objectives. These local evaluations will feed back into the on-going development of the programme and also inform the national evaluation.
Sure Start is a very new programme but there is already significant enthusiasm for the programme by parents in Sure Start areas and signs of better co-ordination of services for young children and their families at local level.