Originally posted by SueEllen
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The Labour Government in power from 1997 to 2010 spent significant amounts of money on children
under five, in a strategy which invested in both cash and services (to a remarkably even degree). By
2010 more than £3,500 was being spent per year on cash benefits for each child, and roughly £2,600
per child on Sure Start, early education and childcare, plus more than £900 on health.
...
Sure Start provides another example of the challenge of finding a balance between universalism and
targeting. When Sure Start Children’s Centres were rolled out to the rest of the country (partly to reach
disadvantaged children in non-disadvantaged areas), resources were not increased by enough to
sustain levels of funding to the existing Centres: services now reached more children, at greater cost
overall, but were more thinly spread. These examples underline the basic trade-off policymakers face: in
general, providing improved services for more children will cost more money, and there is no right
answer about which corner of this triangle should give way.
Nevertheless there may be ways in which money could have been spent ‘smarter’. One question mark
hangs over Labour’s decision to expand the provision of childcare and early education in England using
a demand-side strategy which actively promoted private and voluntary sector providers of childcare and
early education, rather than developing the maintained sector, which had been shown to deliver better quality. The importance of ‘choice for parents’ was given considerable emphasis, echoing approaches to
the delivery of other public services. In practice, it is not clear either how much parents really value
choice or how far having a range of providers, including for-profit providers, manages to ensure this.
Quality of childcare certainly improved under Labour policies, particularly in the voluntary sector, but
these improvements seem to have resulted from government investment and regulations, not from
competition between providers. It is quite plausible that the same level of resources could have achieved
more if they had been invested in direct state provision.
under five, in a strategy which invested in both cash and services (to a remarkably even degree). By
2010 more than £3,500 was being spent per year on cash benefits for each child, and roughly £2,600
per child on Sure Start, early education and childcare, plus more than £900 on health.
...
Sure Start provides another example of the challenge of finding a balance between universalism and
targeting. When Sure Start Children’s Centres were rolled out to the rest of the country (partly to reach
disadvantaged children in non-disadvantaged areas), resources were not increased by enough to
sustain levels of funding to the existing Centres: services now reached more children, at greater cost
overall, but were more thinly spread. These examples underline the basic trade-off policymakers face: in
general, providing improved services for more children will cost more money, and there is no right
answer about which corner of this triangle should give way.
Nevertheless there may be ways in which money could have been spent ‘smarter’. One question mark
hangs over Labour’s decision to expand the provision of childcare and early education in England using
a demand-side strategy which actively promoted private and voluntary sector providers of childcare and
early education, rather than developing the maintained sector, which had been shown to deliver better quality. The importance of ‘choice for parents’ was given considerable emphasis, echoing approaches to
the delivery of other public services. In practice, it is not clear either how much parents really value
choice or how far having a range of providers, including for-profit providers, manages to ensure this.
Quality of childcare certainly improved under Labour policies, particularly in the voluntary sector, but
these improvements seem to have resulted from government investment and regulations, not from
competition between providers. It is quite plausible that the same level of resources could have achieved
more if they had been invested in direct state provision.
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