The Chancellor said in his spending review speech in July that an extra Pounds 100m would be made available to create 2,500 children's centres by 2008.
Although no formal announcement has been made about how the initiative will be funded, the Government has made it clear that local authorities will be responsible for developing local strategies for children's centres.
But early years professionals are concerned that once the money moves from Sure Start local programmes to children's centres in 2006, it will no longer be ring-fenced.
Speaking at a conference on children's centres in London last week sponsored by Children Now magazine, Sandra Shears, programme manager for Ipswich Sure Start, said that the Government is taking a 'huge risk' in putting power back into the hands of local authorities.
She said, 'I feel that we are going backwards, not forwards. If the Government thought that local authorities and healthcare services were able to develop Sure Start local programmes in the beginning, they would have been given the money in the first place. How do we know that our children's centres will get the funding if the money is not ring-fenced?'
She suggested that the shift in power could be a direct threat to the early years sector. 'Local authorities are bureaucratic and system-led, and we may have to take a backstage role because they tend to have more of a focus on schools and social services.'
Professor Norman Glass, chief executive of the National Centre for Social Research and one of the instigators of the Sure Start programme, said that he had 'distinct worries' about mainstreaming. He said that he remained to be convinced that the money that is currently going out for local Sure Start programmes will go into health and social services departments and then 'mysteriously reappear in early years programmes'.
He said, 'I am very excited about the notion that there should be 2,500 children's centres around the country. But I am somewhat nervous about the lack of detail on how it will work and what it's going to be and how much money it's going to get.'
A spokesperson for the DfES said, 'Our longer-term aim is to provide resources for children's centres through local authorities. But no decisions have yet been taken as to when this change will happen. We are looking at options.'
