On 22 February 2019, I spoke at a conference in memory of a good friend, Tessa Jowell. The event was about her legacy, marking 20 years since the first Sure Start programmes, which she’d driven as public health minister.
Sure Start provided support for children under five, and was expanded through the 2000s before being all but abolished after 2010. By 2019, the evidence was mounting that the programme had delivered positive results for families and mothers, but it was too early to know the lasting impact on children.
Since then, researchers have found positive effects on child health and school attainment, particularly for the most disadvantaged.
Published this autumn, new research by the IFS goes further, finding that children with access to a Sure Start centre (and society more widely) benefited in another way: it reduced the share of 16-year-olds who had ever received a criminal conviction by 13%. Custodial sentences fell a fifth.
So, for every Sure Start pound spent, 19p of spending on youth justice and social care was saved. Tessa would have been proud, but not surprised.
Youth centres aren’t as new and shiny as Sure Start centres, but evidence is also mounting that austerity-induced closures were criminal.
A new paper by Warwick University’s Carmen Villa compares neighbours who were and weren’t affected by almost a third of youth centres in London closing. The teenagers affected did 4% worse in exams and were more likely to commit crimes, costing us nearly £3 for every £1 saved. The vandalism of austerity, and the damage it imposed on younger generations, has left us with a very high bill to pay.
Torsten Bell is Labour MP for Swansea West and author of Great Britain? How We Get Our Future Back
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