No estimate has been made of the average salary of Sure Start workers in each of the last four years. However, our 2006 survey of early years and childcare providers has, for the first time, identified Sure Start children’s centres as a separate category of provider. Data about the salary levels of those working in children’s centres will therefore be available when the survey findings are published next year.
Funding for programmes specifically to provide integrated services to pre-school children through Sure Start local programmes and latterly, children’s centres, began in 1999. Between 1999 and March 2006, £2.1 billion1 was spent by local partners to set up and run this provision.
Figures for the total number of children who have participated in Sure Start since 1999 have not been collected centrally. The number of children seen by Sure Start local programmes was monitored from 2001, but this data is incomplete as reporting from some programmes was irregular in the early stages. As of 1 December 2006, there were 1,048 designated children’s centres, a figure that includes the vast majority of the 524 Sure Start local programmes established originally. Over 800,000 children under five now have the opportunity to access children’s centre services, significant progress in our target to have a children centre for every community by March 2010.
1 The total includes 2005-06 expenditure on Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) and children’s centres which has been estimated using returns from local authorities and SSLPs, and should be treated as provisional. For children’s centres, the expenditure is based on unaudited expenditure returns from all local authorities. For SSLPs, the revenue expenditure is based on received unaudited expenditure returns and an estimate for those programmes where a return has not been received and the capital expenditure on payments made less estimated refunds.