Poverty taskforce set to back return of Sure Start - but ministers unsure of funding

The government-backed child poverty taskforce is likely to recommend the return of the early years service Sure Start, the Guardian understands, though there are doubts in government about whether it could be funded.

- Pippa Crerar Jessica Elgot

Senior ministers including Rachel Reeves, Liz Kendall and Bridget Phillipson have cited the service as one of the crowning achievements of the last Labour government.

But despite widespread admiration, the fragmentation of it after cuts under the coalition government means that restarting the scheme would be a difficult and costly task.

"The child poverty taskforce has recommended bringing back Sure Start but it would take huge investment to do it and over the past 15 years services have become very fragmented," one government source told the Guardian.

Senior figures in No 10 are understood to have pointed to all the benefits it gave poorer families when Labour was last in power. However, it has not yet featured in any serious policy discussions, a source said.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies found recently that Sure Start children's centres in England generated £2 of financial benefits for every £1 in costs - and created £2.8bn in savings and revenues at the scheme's peak.