11 December 2002
Speech by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Paul Boateng MP, at the Sure Start Conference
I am pleased to have the opportunity to be here today.
2. To welcome you to this first national conference.
3. To talk to the people who are on the ground making a difference.
4. To consolidate the successes of local schemes and to mainstream best practice across local services.
5. I want to start by saying ‘thank you’ to everyone who has been involved so far – across central government, local government, the private, voluntary and community sectors, schools, nurseries and sure start schemes. It is your work that has taken us this far and it is your work that will carry us even further.
6. Today marks the formal launch of the new Sure Start unit, bringing together the Sure Start programme, childcare for children of all ages and early years education. The next step in meeting our commitment, as a government, to abolish child poverty and give every child the best start in life. Complemented by extra support for families and children through the new tax credits from next April. It is vital, of course, that we address the root causes of poverty – low income and unemployment.
7. Child poverty, as the Chancellor has said, is “a scar on the soul of Britain”. When we came into government one in three children was living in low-income families, with a higher number of children growing up in workless households than any other European country. So we knew it was essential to address the causes of poverty and provide support where and when it was most needed.
8. We know, it is our shared experience, that children who grow up in poor families are less likely to reach their full potential, less likely to stay on at school, or even attend school, more likely to fall into the dead end of unemployment and poverty as an adult, more likely to be in the worst jobs or no jobs at all, more likely to be trapped in a no win situation - poor when young, unemployed when older.
9. It is a scar, it is a shame, and most of all, it is a waste of potential: young people unable to grow and develop, unable to achieve their ambitions or realise their dreams.
10. So our starting point is that it is in the family that we build this next generation – tapping and unlocking that potential. And in today’s fast changing economy – with all its uncertainties – families, now more than ever, need to know they don’t have to go it alone. They need security and support, and more choice to balance their work and family lives. That is something we all need, and it is something the poorest need more than most.
11. So first, we are tackling child poverty at its source - the absence of work and in-work poverty by providing increased financial support for families with children and those in work on low incomes. From April 2003, the new tax credits will be available to nine out of every ten families with children. And we are doing most for the children that need it most with child support for the poorest families in the country - £28 a week in 1997 – from April 2003 £54.25 a week for the first child – a near doubling of support.
12. Second, we are providing more help to enable parents to access good quality, affordable childcare.
13. Third, to give families extra support after the birth of a child, maternity pay will rise to £100 a week from April next year, with paid maternity leave extended to 26 weeks, and Britain’s first-ever paid paternity leave so working fathers can spend more time with their partner and new child.
14. Fourth, because improving our public services - healthcare, schools, nurseries, playgroups, and learning support - in the poorest communities is vital to tackling child poverty, our programme will invest in young children in areas of greatest need.
15. And fifth, we must mobilise not just central government, but local government, voluntary help and community action. In Sure Start, the New Deal for Communities, and the Children’s Fund, we must ensure that services are delivered to children and families in new local partnerships to tackle child poverty.
16. It is this fifth point, partnership, joining up services, public, private, voluntary and community sectors, around the needs of parents and of children, that we are all engaged in discussing here today.
17. Partnerships do not just spring up; they do no develop spontaneously. It takes work and it takes compromise. We all know that. And we know it has to be done, because we know that integrating services, working in partnership, delivers results.
18. We know the first years of a child’s life are critical to their personal development and can have a lifelong impact on their intellectual and emotional wellbeing – and future life chances. We need a strategy for counteracting disadvantage from before a child’s birth, to ensure that every child, when they are ready for school, is also ready to learn.
19. That is a collective responsibility. It is a responsibility we share. I am old enough to remember the settlement post World War II which created the NHS, the decision we made then, together, as a society, to support our children, to give them the best start in life. I am a first generation NHS baby, that generation that grew up without the fear of rickets because of our parents’ sense of collective responsibility to ensure that the health of children was the responsibility of all. I remember the orange juice in medicine bottles, the cod liver oil and malt. Sure Start enters into that tradition, at the start of the 21st Century, society coming together collectively to give all our children the best start in life.
20. The new Sure Start will make life better for children, parents and communities: bringing together early education, childcare and health and family support.
21. We are pioneering a co-ordinated approach to services for families with children. We are tackling the causes of inter-generational poverty - lack of educational opportunity, lack of parental support, lack of health advice. And we are doing so by adopting an integrated approach to childcare, early education, health services and family support.
22. This approach will be taken forward with the creation of children’s centres. Building, where possible, on existing provision, these will extend this integrated approach to more children. Our longer-term aim is that there should be one in every one of the 20 per cent most disadvantaged wards.
23. Sure Start is innovative, administered at central government level by a single budget, drawing different departments together within a single, clear brand.
24. And Sure Start is designed to make effective services available, accessible and affordable.
25. 522 local programmes have been established with over 370 now providing services to children. Since September 1998, there have been free early education place for all 4 yr olds. 70% of 3 year olds whose parents want one can access a free early education place. And on childcare, we are on track to deliver places for 1.6 million children by March 2004.
26. In my own constituency, Brent South, Sure Start is improving standards of health, education, social care, and outreach services, for parents and for children, in some of the most deprived areas. I still feel that thrill, when I visit the scheme in Harlesden, the sense of empowerment, with the parents at the centre of the process, their views and experience respected.
27. But we know we still have to do more
28. That is why, in the Spending Review, we announced an increase in the combined budget for Sure Start, Childcare and Early Years to £1.5 billion pounds by 2006, enabling us to provide 250,000 more childcare places and introduce the new children’s centres – bringing together provision of good quality childcare, early years education, family support and health services. By March 2006 650,000 children will have access to these services in the most disadvantaged wards of our country.
29. The Spending Review also provides:
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Continued support for the current 522 Sure Start programmes and 20 Sure Start Pluses in SR2002;
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A principled commitment to Sure Start to 2013-14; and
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Dedicated funding for the mainstreaming agenda: enabling Sure Start to test and develop new delivery methods.
30. On top of that, we are providing resources to meet, by September 2004, the Government’s commitment to free early education place for all 3 and 4 yr olds whose parents want one.
31. And we are not only expanding the support provided through Sure Start, but we are also changing the way it is delivered -- bringing together Sure Start, childcare and early years education into a single inter-departmental unit -- and, most importantly, giving local authorities an enhanced role in supporting delivery.
32. We are doing this together. And that means respecting what each and every agency and each and every individual can bring to the table. It means respecting different perspectives and different points of view.
33. Let us be clear about the radicalism of the proposal.
34. Sure Start is strengthening community support for children, recognising that solutions do not come top down from government, but bottom up from the community itself: co-ordinating local good quality education and health and child care services, bringing government and voluntary action together to tackle the disadvantages of poverty, targeting resources where they are most needed. Together, we are recognising what needs to be done on the ground and we are getting it done by empowering the people who know how to do it.
35. And I see the notion of community empowerment going much further.
36. We do not want to just spend money, we must also mobilise the community. So we must rally the forces in our community – local authorities, voluntary groups, community organisations and charities - to achieve the best for all our children.
37. The old days of Whitehall knows best are over.
38. We know that support for families cannot be provided by government alone.
39. And we know that child poverty cannot be removed by government alone.
40. Instead, with government working together with parents, local authorities, voluntary, charitable and community organisations, challenging each other to do the best we can, we can – and will – deliver a better future for our children.
41. Next April will see a step-change in support for families and children. In the Pre-Budget Report, we announced that we would consider further reforms to give parents real choices in balancing their work and family lives: new tax and national insurance incentives to expand employer supported child care; paying the child care element of working tax credit for approved home child care by carers who are not already childminders; and increased flexibility in parental leave - giving fathers time off to attend ante-natal care.
42. It is the government’s objective to ensure that no child will go without help, that every child is included, that every child will have the chance to make the best of their lives, that we will never allow another generation of children to be, effectively, discarded.
43. This is a great responsibility. But it is also a source of great hope and, for generations to come, the work we do together today, will be a source of great joy. We are making a difference.
44. Thank you.