“Brilliant news.”
It was announced this week that family hubs will be introduced in every council area across England. These hubs will offer a broad range of support services, including debt advice, birth registration, midwifery services, and assistance for parents who are separating or have separated.
At the start of 2025, parenting support and youth services were launched across 75 local authorities. Every local authority is expected to have a Best Start Family Hub in place by April 2026.
Under the scheme, the Department for Education is targeting £500 million at disadvantaged communities.
The rollout has been widely welcomed by unions. GMB national officer Stacey Booth described it as “brilliant news,” calling the closure of Sure Start centres under the previous government “an unmitigated disaster.”
Sure Start was introduced by New Labour in the 2000s. It was subsequently scaled back by successive coalition and Tory governments.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the school leaders’ union NAHT, referred to the announcement as a “positive step forward towards ensuring all children get the best start.”
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said that the expansion will “give a lifeline” to families, with plans for up to 1,000 hubs by the end of 2028.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, shared cautious optimism:
“This is a really good idea,” he said, “but the funding will have to be at the right level to reap the benefits – at its peak Sure Start invested over £2 billion annually.”
Save The Children UK executive director Dan Paskins said: “With ministers now demonstrating an increasingly ambitious plan for children in the UK, we hope this drive for change continues when the child poverty strategy is released in autumn.
“This must include scrapping the two-child limit to universal credit, which is the only meaningful way to reduce the UK’s record child poverty rate.”
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