Sure Start Failing Ethnic Minorities, Says Report

The government’s Sure Start programme has proved a “very serious policy failure” and a “substantial wasted opportunity” for deprived black and ethnic minority families, according to a report out today.

The study, Sure Start and Black and Minority Ethnic Populations, is part of a government evaluation.

It identifies “serious failings” in the way local Sure Start programmes work with minority groups. The time needed to create links with some minority communities had made some Sure Start groups give up trying, according to the evaluation, led by Gary Craig, professor of social justice at the University of Hull.

Opportunities to use Sure Start, which provides one-stop services for children under six and their families in deprived communities, as a means of promoting social cohesion at a time of increased local tension between differing ethnic groups have been wasted, the study concludes.

The report, based on a two-year study, is the latest in a series of evaluations to criticise the programme.

It is Labour’s most expensive investment in social policy and currently undergoing a big expansion.

Last December, a report by the National Audit Office found fewer than a third of Sure Start children’s centres were reaching out to the neediest families they were intended to target, with most failing to identify the most disadvantaged families in their area and offer them support.

In September 2005, the first major evaluation of the £3bn programme conducted by researchers at Birkbeck College found no overall improvement in areas targeted by the initiative.

The government has defended the scheme overall pointing out that many of its benefits are long-term, and extending it from deprived areas to a planned 3,500 Sure Start children’s centres across the country.

Today’s report highlights problems including a failure of local Sure Start programmes to take on board national guidance for working with minorities, and the fact that evaluations have not properly examined how the scheme works with ethnic minority families.