A trailblazing children’s centre in one of the UK’s poorest towns that inspired the creation of Sure Start is facing closure because of local council cuts.
Pen Green in Corby, Northamptonshire, a global beacon of early years expertise that pioneered wraparound care – bringing together a nursery, parental support and health and social services under a single roof – said it would shut if the Conservative-run North Northamptonshire council pushed ahead with £800,000 of cuts.
Pen Green’s chair, Adam Cooper, said the threatened removal of its integrated services made a mockery of the government’s levelling up aspirations and would be a catastrophe for low-income families with young children in an area where many were struggling with rising poverty amid the cost of living crisis.
“Losing the integrated services offering at Pen Green will have a catastrophic impact on the long-term outcomes and the lives of young children and their families in Corby. These cuts equate to a loss of approximately 70% of our funding each year, and 100% of the funding for integrated services,” Cooper said.
Much loved locally, where it serves about 1,000 families a year, Pen Green also has a national and international reputation for its innovative services. It has trained thousands of early years workers, runs a thriving research centre and attracts hundreds of visitors a year from countries seeking to emulate its approach.
The cuts were approved at a full council meeting on Thursday, days after the government trumpeted a £300m rollout of “family hubs” in 75 English local authority areas. These provide a version of the wraparound early years services pioneered by Pen Green, and further developed in Labour’s Sure Start scheme.
Although North Northamptonshire was one of the 75 areas in England chosen for investment, Pen Green said council officials had told it privately that it would not receive any of the government’s family hub funding. The council has so far refused to say who or what will provide the family hub service, or whether it will be based in Corby.
Pen Green has faced financial jeopardy several times in its 40-year history, and this is the second time in the space of a year that it has faced an existential threat. It was saved at the 11th hour last March when the council backed down midway through a packed and emotional council meeting.
North Northamptonshire has defended the cuts on the basis that it is unfair that Pen Green should receive a greater share of nursery grant funding than the other three council nurseries in the authority. It said it wanted “every child to receive the same access and quality of provision no matter their postcode”.
The council’s leader, Jason Smithers, said: “We do recognise the value and importance of early education for children across north Northamptonshire. We have worked to ensure a fair, equitable and transparent funding arrangement for all four of our maintained nurseries to ensure that children and families accessing early education can continue to do so in their own communities.”
Pen Green described this as a “levelling down” approach that failed to recognise the extra pressures of serving families in the council’s most socially deprived postcodes, and the added costs of the extensive range of services it provided over and above those offered by the council’s other nurseries.
Corby’s Tory MP, Tom Pursglove, said he opposed the cuts. He has offered to broker meetings between Pen Green, the council and the children’s minister, Claire Coutinho, in an attempt to minimise the impact of the cuts, which he said had become a source of anxiety for his constituents.
He said: “I am clear that the risk of the integrated centre being lost or radically scaled down must be addressed, as I recognise the enormous difference it makes to so many local families, and for my part I will continue to work intensively on this issue. A way forward must be found.”
