Allen's early intervention report calls for better-qualified workforce

Mr Allen also recommends that there should be an Early Years Professional in every setting.

A Workforce Development strategy should be set up, led by the Department for Education and the Department of Health, to ensure there are enough ‘suitably qualified candidates who wish to work with the 0-5s.’

Early Intervention: Next Steps focuses on the rationale for early intervention and identifies the Family Nurse Partnership as one of the 19 programmes rated most highly from a list of more than 70 programmes chosen for their effectiveness in early intervention.

Others include the US Early Literacy and Learning, Reading Recovery and the Incredible Years parenting intervention.

Mr Allen, the MP for Nottingham North (pictured), said that these programmes should be expanded and promoted by a new non-government body called the Early Intervention Foundation, which would be independently funded, to gather evidence that the programmes work and develop others.

In the foreword to the report,  Mr Allen said, ‘A range of well-tested programmes, low in cost, high in results can have a lasting impact on all children, especially the most vulnerable.’

The money would not come from Government but from private investors, charitable trusts and banks, who would see a return on their investment by measuring the success of early intervention programmes.

Children should also receive regular assessments in their early years on their social and emotional development ‘up to and including the age of five so that they can be put on the path to school readiness', the report said.

‘Socially and emotionally capable people are more productive, better-educated, tax-paying citizens helping our nation to compete in the global economy, and making fewer demands on public expenditure.'

Mr Allen said that these external reviews were needed because there was an ‘unnecessary separation' between the Healthy Child Programme reviews and the Early Years Foundation Stage assessments.

Other key recommendations include: