New look into Sure Start

The report, to be published within the next three months, will look atthe impact of Sure Start Local Programmes on a cohort of children nowthree years old and their families, who took part at the age of ninemonths for the initial Sure Start study published in 2005.

Professor Jay Belsky, research director of the independent nationalevaluation team into Sure Start and director of the Institute for theStudy of Children, Families, and Social Issues at Birkbeck College,University of London, told Nursery World that the new report wouldfollow up the initial evaluation.

He said, 'My view is that with infants and toddlers, it shouldn't be theonly childcare option incentivised by the Government.'

Professor Belsky said that parents of young children should not be'economically coerced' into using childcare. Tax breaks should beavailable for families to choose what is right for them, whether thatwas using childcare or not, he said.

Meanwhile, the Labour MP Frank Field, writing in the Daily Telegraphlast week, said that parents should have more flexibility about how toaccess Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit that is accrued during achild's life, which he said amounted to around 100,000.

Mr Field said, 'Why not offer to mothers or fathers the right to draw aquarter of this sum to look after their child full-time? 25,000tax-free over the first two years of a child's life would massivelyincrease the freedom of families to choose to care for their own veryyoung children.'