What councils spend on the youngest children, and where the local Home-Starts are
The census counted every child under five in England and Wales, place by place. Councils in England tell the Department for Education each year what they spend on children’s centres, under-fives and family support. Home-Start UK publishes where its local Home-Starts are. This puts the three side by side.
This is a map, not a service, and nobody here can arrange support or a referral. Your health visitor, GP or local family hub can help now, and many local Home-Starts take families who ask for themselves — find one under Find a Home-Start. If a child is in danger, call 999.
3,232,036children under five in England and Wales
Counted by the 2021 census: every child aged 0 to 4.
-52.3%real-terms change in council spending on Sure Start children's centres and other services for under-fives since 2015-16
From £975.7m in 2015-16 to £465.6m in 2024-25, both in 2024-25 prices. Family support rose over the same years — see below.
9.6% → 4.0%of councils' spending on early childhood and family support that went through voluntary providers
2015-16 and 2024-25, as councils reported it to the Department for Education.
96 of 174areas where a local Home-Start shows
Counties and unitary authorities of England and Wales where a local Home-Start gives an address, or a Home-Start charity records working there.
What councils in England spend on the youngest children
Net spending on Sure Start children’s centres and other services for children under five, each year the Department for Education’s current figures cover. The second column restates every year in 2024-25 prices, by the Treasury’s GDP deflator, so the years can be compared.
| Year | Cash | In 2024-25 prices |
|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | £727.6m | £975.7m |
| 2016-17 | £687.6m | £903.9m |
| 2017-18 | £578.8m | £751.3m |
| 2018-19 | £508.1m | £644.8m |
| 2019-20 | £469.6m | £580.7m |
| 2020-21 | £446.3m | £524.4m |
| 2021-22 | £427.3m | £500.9m |
| 2022-23 | £446.0m | £488.6m |
| 2023-24 | £447.3m | £465.4m |
| 2024-25 | £465.6m | £465.6m |
Over those years this spending fell from £975.7m to £465.6m in 2024-25 prices: -52.3%. Spending on the children’s centres themselves went from £627.1m to £276.2m (-56.0%). Of the 146 councils whose boundaries allow a like-for-like comparison, 127 spent less in real terms, and 77 spent less than half as much.
Some of that money moved rather than went. Over the same years, spending on family support services rose from £1,264.9m to £1,673.7m (+32.3%), most of it targeted family support, up from £737.6m to £1009.9m. Taken together, the two fell from £2,240.6m to £2,139.4m: -4.5%, and 87 of 146 councils spent less on the two together.
What went to voluntary organisations fell on both. Of councils’ gross spending on the two, the share provided by the voluntary sector went from 9.6% in 2015-16 to 4.0% in 2024-25: from 11.8% to 7.8% on services for under-fives, and from 7.9% to 2.8% on family support.
Councils file the same work under different headings, and some now report almost nothing on the first line and much more on the second — which is why the two are also shown together. The figures are what councils reported to the Department for Education; they begin in 2015-16, and they say nothing about the years before. They are council spending only: the new Best Start family hubs and other national money paid directly are not all in them.
Where the local Home-Starts are
England’s counties and unitary authorities, split into five equal groups by the published measure of deprivation — the share of each area’s neighbourhoods in the most deprived tenth nationally.
| Deprivation | Areas | A local Home-Start shows | Real-terms change in the two together since 2015-16 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Least deprived fifth | 30 | 19 of 30 | -12.7% |
| Second | 30 | 19 of 30 | +5.0% |
| Middle | 31 | 18 of 31 | -14.0% |
| Fourth | 30 | 15 of 30 | +0.8% |
| Most deprived fifth | 31 | 13 of 31 | +3.5% |
Local Home-Starts show less often where deprivation is highest. One is present in 13 of the 31 most deprived areas and 19 of the 30 least deprived. That is a finding about where local Home-Starts are, not about how much help anybody gets.
By kind of council
Every county and unitary authority, by the kind of council it is. London boroughs and metropolitan boroughs are the big cities and their conurbations; counties are mostly rural and small-town England; the unitary councils are a mix, many of them cities.
| Kind of council | Areas | A local Home-Start shows | Share of children under five living where one shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| London boroughs | 33 | 19 of 33 | 58.2% |
| Metropolitan boroughs | 36 | 18 of 36 | 58.4% |
| Unitary councils in England | 59 | 26 of 59 | 49.6% |
| Counties | 24 | 21 of 24 | 92.2% |
| Welsh councils | 22 | 12 of 22 | 60.1% |
See the areas where no local Home-Start shows, and what that does not mean →
The local Home-Starts themselves
Home-Start UK’s public listing pages show 143 local Home-Starts, 36 of them filed under Scotland or Northern Ireland; its own words are “our network of over 160 local Home-Start charities”. 95 charities on the register for England and Wales stand behind the rest. The typical one — the median — reported income of £240,359 in its latest accounts.
What this is for
Two readers, and they want different things.
- A parent. The list of local Home-Starts is searchable here by the question a parent arrives with — I’m finding things hard, my child is disabled — rather than by a postcode.
- Somebody arguing about Sure Start and family hubs. There is a public argument about what has happened to early childhood services. This is the spending councils report, set beside the only complete count of young children there is, council by council.
This was built without asking you, from information you and others already publish, to show what is possible rather than to speak for you. If you would rather it came down, say so and it comes down, and you do not have to give a reason. If you would rather it were built properly — with your own figures for the families each one works with — that is the more interesting conversation.