The Scottish Government

Aims and funding allocations

Sure Start Scotland recognises that:

• The child develops within the family, with the wellbeing and broad skills of parents fundamental to a child's progress
• Community - based, family focused resources, including high quality childcare and direct support to parents, will strengthen parents' ability to maximise their child's potential
• Independent research indicates that the most effective forms of intervention are those initiated in early infancy and sustained thereafter.

Sure Start Scotland focuses on how networks of existing provision can be extended, and co-operation fostered between and within local authorities, health bodies and the voluntary sector.

Sure Start Scotland is a key element of the Scottish Executive's Social Inclusion strategy.

Aims

The broad objectives of the initiative are to:

• Improve children's social and emotional development
• Improve children's health
• Improve children's ability to learn
• Strengthen families and communities

In meeting these objectives it is recognised that different parents and children will have varying wishes and needs. But provision should:

• encourage parents to identify what will be helpful resources and services and in the light of that to make provision which maximises opportunities for parental involvement and self and group help

• provide a stimulating environment, in which very young children, through play, have opportunities for physical development, social interaction, personal development and the growth of skills in communication and language

• offer parents opportunities to assist their child's development and achieve greater satisfaction in their role as parents through playing together and exploring how children develop

• provide support to parents which will assist in providing a healthy upbringing for their child

• promote self esteem and personal confidence, as well as communication and decision making skills in both children and parents

• provide opportunities for parents to acquire skills which lay the basis for more extensive training or subsequent employment

• provide inclusive support which is both culturally appropriate and

• provide support targeted to areas of greatest need, including innovative ways of working.

The object of Sure Start Scotland is to build upon existing networks of resource, within the local community. This may involve drop-in centres in urban areas or mobile outreach projects in more rural areas. Local authorities, voluntary organisations, health services and parents should all be involved in the planning and provision of services. Provision should grow from within the community, and should be targeted to those communities most in need.

Sure Start Scotland money should be used to provide an integrated package of support for families with very young children. However, there is no prescriptive model and support should meet the needs of the local area. The Sure Start Scotland mapping exercise published in May 2002 confirms the diversity of project and needs, and that there is no single delivery model.

Funding

£228.9 million has already been allocated to Local Authorities to spend on Sure Start Scotland. £9m was provided in 1999-00; £14m in 2000-01; £19m in 2001-02 and 2002-03; £23.1m in 2003-04; £35m in 2004-05; £52.9m in 2005-06 and £56.9m in 2006-07. In 2007-08 the total annual spend for Sure Start Scotland will be £59.9m. Funding has been distributed to all local authorities in Scotland on a weighted basis to reflect population, deprivation and rurality. The table below indicates how much each Local Authority will receive until March 2008.

The Executive is developing its approach to delivering integrated early years services. This is unlikely to have an impact on the way the allocation of SureStart Scotland funding is distributed in the short-term

In the Scottish Budget 2003-2006 a commitment was made to ensure that at least 15,000 vulnerable children under 5 should have an integrated package of health, care and education support which meets their needs by 2006. This is evidence of the continuing and increasing emphasis on early years intervention, which has led us to look at the objectives which underlie much of such work. There is a significant degree of commonality between the various existing programmes. We are exploring how this commonality can be exploited to provide a more holistic, sensible approach to early years policy, enabling the service providers to more easily deliver integrated, seamless services for children and families. In particular, it should help in targeting services at vulnerable and disadvantaged families. This approach is part of our overall approach to promote and facilitate integrated children's services.

As a first step, we are in the process of commissioning a piece of research to evaluate the impacts of early years policy in Scotland, to see what the impacts have really been for children and families. Alongside this, the Scottish Executive's approach to delivering integrated early years services is aimed at giving young children, up to the age of six, the best possible start in life. It offers a framework for the effective provision of universal and targeted services for children and their families and provides a vision of integrated early years services based on partnerships at all levels. Building on existing provision, Scottish Ministers want to see the development of multi-faceted services, bringing together childcare, pre-school education and some healthcare services focused on young children.