Sure start provides nurseries for the unemployed – nurseries they don’t need because they don’t go to work. It is nulabours biggest single waste of money

title-bot fail again…

@1

A classic facepalm moment if I may say so. Surely if the unemployed have somewhere for their children to go to nursery then they are more likely to get back into employment? [As proven by several of my friends, anecdotally.]

Doesn’t Sure Start fit in with the ‘Big Society’ anyway? Surely it’s something the Coalition should be supporting even more?

And Mr S Pill is quite correct – it’s hard to look for work when you have either children or poverty hanging round your neck.

@ 4

The coalition does support Sure Start. And, as Cameron has said, is determined to focus Sure Start resources on those who really need them most rather than “the sharp-elbowed middle classes”.

The OP, however, is beating the drum for 4Children’s “Shout Out for a Sure Start” campaign.

This is another scandalous abuse of public money.

The campaign is funded by a consortium of bodies (e.g. the Daycare Trust) that themselves get funding from the government, lottery etc.

So, once again, taxpayers’ money is being used to lobby government. Another make-work scheme for lobbyists. Totally unnecessary.

The thing is I reckon it’s a good thing that the middle-classes use Sure Start as well as the poor. Despite everything interaction between classes is still relatively rare (ie: drink in different pubs, work in different places etc) and this is one of those social settings where everyone benefits from it especially the children of the less well-off.
Introducing means-testing will create a stigma around Sure Start and resentment towards the poor from the slightly better-off who might just be over the threshold.

“Sure start provides nurseries for the unemployed – nurseries they don’t need because they don’t go to work. ”

Oh goody the intellectual wing, of the tory party is out in force.

Mr S Pill @6 has a good point

What Mr Pill @6 said.

With the added feature that universal access ropes in elements of the ‘sharp elbowed middle classes’ as part of a political coalition that can be mobilised to defend a programme when the knives come out. That’s why the NHS has been a third rail issue for the tories ever since the swivel eyed Hayekian tendency got into the ascendant and started mouthing off about wanting to dismantle it.

I strongly suspect there are a bunch of tory strategists who are worried that SureStart might become another NHS for them and view the current cuts programme as a chance (possibly their last) to strangle it before the benefits become political unimpeachable.

Regards
Luke

@ 3 – You’re assuming of course that they all want to get back into work – at which point, unless they get a fairly good job, they will lose more than they gain including, ironically, the free nursery school place – if it gets means tested.

S Pill @ 6

Fair point. But I do worry about the optimum use of scarce resources. Round our way it’s always the Yummy Mummies with Range Rover Sports outside who snaffle the free stair safety gates and discounted baby car seats from the Sure Start centre.

Maybe it’s because most of those living in social housing in our area live in flats and don’t need stair gates, can’t afford cars?….. whatever, I still think the YMs should bloody well buy their own.

@ 7 OK Sally you explain why someone who doesn’t have a job needs a taxpayer provided nursery place. Nursery education isn’t compulsory and most people who use them do so out of necessity – and have to pay for the privelidge.

@6 Are you really arguing that we should deliberately give, at great expense, goods and services to those who can afford them just to up their support for giving these same services to those who cannot?

A great deal of the anger at the welfare state from those who pay into it is that money is wasted and you seem to want to waste that money deliberately. Yoking more people into the system is not only wasteful but if you want to defend the welfare state, counter-productive.

If the scheme requires the attendence of middle class people (in this case probably defined as people with jobs and ability to read) then it is not a waste of money. (but considering you are a libertarian, you probably think using taxpayers money to care for stroke victims is a waste).

there are good reasons why you need “middle class” and “working class” parents to mix; you raise asperations and expectations, you teach middle class children that not all kids have hot meals every night etc, you break down barriers and create social capital.

“Sure start provides nurseries for the unemployed – nurseries they don’t need because they don’t go to work.”

Going to nursery improves educational outcomes for kids. So unless you think children of unemployed parents should recieve substandard education (which as a libertarian, you do – poor parents can’t afford private education and libertarianism means no state funding) then you have to provide places for those kids.

“Going to nursery improves educational outcomes for kids. So unless you think children of unemployed parents should recieve substandard education (which as a libertarian, you do – poor parents can’t afford private education and libertarianism means no state funding) then you have to provide places for those kids.”

Bingo. I hate the way so many people in this country (and doubtless elsewhere as well) think that the best way to deal with supposedly thriftless parents is to ensure their kids suffer as much as possible.

@10

Which is exactly why Sure Start shouldn’t be means-tested.

@11

Well round my way (nr Burnley) there are very few yummy mummies and like I say a lot of my (working class) friends have used or do use Sure Start and it’s a bloody godsend. I think in places with greater social diversity (class-wise) the mix will be different – but again, it’s all anecdotal.

@13

Like the NHS and state education, you mean? Why yes, I am.

@ 14 “Going to nursery improves educational outcomes for kids”.

No it doesn’t. The widely (mis) quoted reasearch you are probably refering to says that all other things being equal the effect of nursery is neutral. What it doesn’t say is that it if it gets children out of an at best unstimulating and at worst neglectfull environment then it’s an improvement for them.

@15 “I hate the way so many people in this country (and doubtless elsewhere as well) think that the best way to deal with supposedly thriftless parents is to ensure their kids suffer as much as possible.”

And I hate the way that lefties want to throw money at the retard parents and encourage yet more feckless fuckwits to breed, all to keep generations of social workers in a job and to give the state yet another reason to expand and interfere. Why should my kids lose out because part of what I earn is given to people who really don’t give a fuck about their own kids ?

@ 14 “(which as a libertarian, you do – poor parents can’t afford private education and libertarianism means no state funding)”

And no state means no tax, so everyones income goes up by at least 25%. Many more people can then afford (or at least consider) private education, the price of which would go down significantly through economies of scale. Belive it or not education existed a long time before the state thought it could do a better job. Our university system, at one time the best in the world, was buit up through a mixture of church, charity and philathropy. The state went no-where near it.

“And I hate the way that lefties want to throw money at the retard parents and encourage yet more feckless fuckwits to breed, all to keep generations of social workers in a job and to give the state yet another reason to expand and interfere. Why should my kids lose out because part of what I earn is given to people who really don’t give a fuck about their own kids ?”

Because there are enough decent people out there to prevent innocent children from starving or growing up without an education due to their parents’ stupidity, laziness or ill-fortune. Nice to know that you’ll happily sacrifice children to prevent yourself having to get grumpy about state ‘interference’, though.

19
It became clear, in the latter part of the 19th century, that state intervention was needed to provide education in the UK. Despite being the first country in Europe to industrialize and, for the first three quarters of the century, market leaders, Germany and the rest of western Europe started to overtake us. And, bearing in mind, Germany was only unified in 1871, but the difference between them and the UK, was state provided education and especially in the area of technology.
I’m afraid that your theory about economies of scale in education did not transfer into reality.

Then how do you explain the fact that private schools produce better “outcomes” than state ones ?

“Because there are enough decent people out there to prevent innocent children from starving or growing up without an education due to their parents’ stupidity, laziness or ill-fortune.”

Are there ? Then why do we need ever increasing resources poured into social services ?

“Nice to know that you’ll happily sacrifice children to prevent yourself having to get grumpy about state ‘interference’, though.”

I didn’t say that – the question I asked and which you avoided is why my own children should do without so that some feckless parents offspring can be subsidised ?

22
Don’t really understand your question, I was comparing the early state intervention of providing schools in Germany to our late attempt. Do you mean that private schools produced better outcomes than the state schools in 19th century Germany/UK?
What I would say is that the basic utilitarian education provided by the 19th century English schools cannot be compared to private education – simply put, girls were taught domestic skills, boys very basic English/maths. All things being equal,I have no doubt that if I employed a tutor to give extra tuition to one of my children and not the other, the chances are that the child who received the extra tuition would do better than the one who hadn”t received the tuition. But I still don’t know what point you’re trying to make.

Really simple – small number of private schools (now, in the uk) produce better results than state education (now in the UK) hence state education doesn’t do what it was supposed to – spread the benefits of (what was previously private/3rd sector) education to the disadvantaged.
The real comparison is not between Germany and the UK – there are too many other variables, and Germany overtook us against post war, long after we had state education – but between what non state education would look like now and what state education looks like now. Education serves the needs of the time, if you want men in factories and women producting children that is what your education system will produce.

“Are there ? Then why do we need ever increasing resources poured into social services ?”

Where do you think those resources come from? Well, I know what you’ll say to that: the taxpayer. In that case: where do you think the political will to sustain such resources come from? Decent people, who are prepared to pay for social services so children won’t suffer the sins of their fathers any more than they have to.

There are also bastards in the world, of course, and yes, some of them are those who would pass by on the other side, and yes, some of them are those who would neglect their kids in the first place. Don’t think I’m allying myself with the latter. I’d just prefer to limit the damage.

“I didn’t say that – the question I asked and which you avoided is why my own children should do without so that some feckless parents offspring can be subsidised ?”

Oh, yes, the “why should I suffer” question. Popular among anti-war demonstrators who find some bereaved parent, drag them in front of the politician and demand to be told why this person’s child was worth the fight. An irrational appeal to emotion, in other word.

Want to know the answer? Your children won’t do without. Three reasons. One: as someone who can afford to pay sizeable taxes, you can presumably afford to feed and clothe your children. Two: as unconscionable a human being as you like to present yourself as being, between the callousness shown on this thread and the bigotry demonstrated on others, I really, really doubt you’d fritter away your children’s future so you could buy nice things for yourself. You just don’t seem like that kind of person. Three: you are actually entitled to the same benefits as the poor (you know, those cunts who have failed to earn enough money to be considered to be real people and therefore represent an evil threat in your eyes). I have no idea whether you claim them or not, but the state at least allows for your children’s wellbeing, just the same as it does everyone else’s kids.

And no, you didn’t directly say that you’d sacrifice kids. But when I appealed to their welfare, you ignored that entirely and started ranting about the parents. Do kids choose who they’re born to?

I suspect Matt Munro will only be happy when sterilisation of the poor becomes policy… it already has one advocate in the Daily Mail (where else?). Then no poor children to worry about, see. Win-win all round.

“I suspect Matt Munro will only be happy when sterilisation of the poor becomes policy… it already has one advocate in the Daily Mail (where else?). Then no poor children to worry about, see. Win-win all round.”

Absolutely. Otherwise the feckless bastards will only go and fecklessly have kids and those kids will be all, y’know, feckless ‘n’ shit. It’s written in their fucking horoscopes.

@6: Introducing means-testing will create a stigma around Sure Start and resentment towards the poor from the slightly better-off who might just be over the threshold.

Yes

@9: With the added feature that universal access ropes in elements of the ‘sharp elbowed middle classes’ as part of a political coalition that can be mobilised to defend a programme when the knives come out.

This is also true.

“I didn’t say that – the question I asked and which you avoided is why my own children should do without so that some feckless parents offspring can be subsidised?”

Absent the aggressive “I’ve got mine” tone it’s a fair question and it deserves a fair answer.

That answer being of course that Matt’s children benefit from SureStart even if he doesn’t take advantage of the service himself.

All the evidence is that early interventions like SureStart pay massive dividends a decade or so down the line in terms of improved behaviour, educational outcomes, reduced criminality, rates of drug abuse and any number of other indices of deprivation for graduates of these schemes. Thus Matt’s progeny can expect to benefit in two ways:

1) They won’t have to share their school classrooms (or the streets) with as many of the disruptive, violent, poorly socialised inadequates who make life such a misery in the kind of sink schools and estates that everyone gets so worked up about in these sorts of discussions.

2) As they move into adulthood they will have to pay less in taxes to fund the govt organs who deal with the consequences of these kids having had such a blighted start; whether it be cops, courts, prisons, needle exchanges, STD clinics, care services, rough sleeper initiatives or whatever.

You want there to be fewer social workers in the ’20s, Matt? Fund SureStart today.

Regards
Luke

(Matt Munro)
Children go to Nurserys and Creches to stimulate and grow in their cognitive, social and emotional development. At Nursery they will also work on developing their Fine and Gross motor skills, so yes it is necessary for a child to attend some kind of nursery to ensure they are interacting with other children and adults. Also Nursery’s help children learn what is socially acceptable behaviour.
With out these Sure Start Children’s Centres that have been developed, communication between services would still be very poor, and also access to services would be of minimum. You should look at the positives of these centres rather than just about yourself and the negatives. There are thousands of people who are really benefiting from these services, and the Care Practitioners working in these services are working together to benefit our children, you should respect that