Funding for children’s centres in doubt

Although children’s centres play an important role in the
implementation of the bill, the centres have virtually no funding
attached to them, children’s professionals have warned.

Speaking at a conference on children’s services organised by the
charity 4Children, delegates said children’s centres had a
“pathetic amount of revenue budget”. They were being asked to
employ a full-time teacher with no extra funding.

Carey Oppenheim, a senior policy adviser to the prime minister,
said that children’s minister Margaret Hodge had the issue high up
on her agenda.