The Sure Start Children’s Centres targets are expressed in terms of the number of children we expect centres to be reaching. Copeland has four designated children’s centres reaching 1,753 children under five: Cleator Moor, Frizington Nursery and Early Excellence Centre, Millom and Whitehaven. Nationally, over 800,000 children and their families now have the opportunity to access children’s centre services: significant progress in our target to have a children’s centre for every community by 2010.
Our Planning and Performance Management Guidance for children’s centres, issued last November, includes key performance indicators and a self-evaluation process for children’s centres to use in discussion with their local authority and the local community. The performance indicators relate to: Foundation Stage profile results; child obesity; mothers initiating breastfeeding; children in workless households; teenage mothers in education, employment or training; access for the most excluded groups; and parental satisfaction.
We have contracted with the Together for Children (TfC) Consortium to challenge and support local authorities in the light of progress against the national indicators drawing on local level data to demonstrate children's centres progress and performance.