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Sure Start Programme

Volume 501: debated on Tuesday 24 November 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) whether he has plans to extend the operation of the Sure Start programme in (a) Chorley and (b) Lancashire; (301418)

(2) how much his Department has spent on the Sure Start programme in Chorley since the introduction of that programme.

Lancashire currently has 73 designated Sure Start Children's Centres offering access to services to approximately 48,800 children under five and their families. Of these centres, six are in the Chorley constituency, with a combined reach of approximately 4,000 children under five and their families. Lancashire is planning a further six centres to be delivered by 2010, with two of these in Chorley.

The Department allocates capital and revenue funding for children's centres and their predecessor Sure Start Local programmes to local authorities. It is for local authorities to decide how to allocate funding between individual centres. The following table contains details of the Sure Start Children's Centre expenditure (both revenue and capital) for Lancashire for the years since the inception of the Sure Start programme.

Lancashire Sure Start Children's Centre funding (Capital and Revenue) programme allocation table

Capital and revenue allocations

Children's Centre expenditure/Lancashire

2003-04

21,000

2004-05

100,000

2005-06

7,150,000

2006-07

12,559,000

2007-08

14,323,000

2008-09

13,125,000

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what his most recent assessment is of the outcomes of the Sure Start programme; and if he will make a statement. (301477)

I refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 10 November 2009, Official Report, column 354W, to my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South (Ben Chapman).