Better Start offers better future
I’ve long said that Blackpool has the answers to its own problems — and when MPs from the Health and Social Care Committee came to Blackpool this summer, I was proud to show them exactly what I mean. What they found, in fact, were perhaps answers to the whole country’s problems – at least when it comes to the first 1,000 days of life.
They came to see the work of the Blackpool Better Start Partnership – which for the past ten years has been driving improvements in early years support across the town – and they left impressed. The partnership brings together the NHS, Blackpool Council, Lancashire Police, and the local community, all working towards one goal: giving every child in Blackpool the best start in life.
Before I was elected, I was a stay-at-home dad with my son Cillian when he was newborn and like any new parent, I had moments where I felt completely out of my depth.
With parents at Blackpool Family Hub
The Blackpool Family Hubs – run by the Council and part of the Better Start Partnership – were a lifeline. They were warm, welcoming places where I could get advice, share experiences and talk to other parents who were figuring it out like me. That support made all the difference and gave me confidence as a new dad.
That’s the power of the approach we’ve built in Blackpool. It’s real people in our community helping families give their kids the best beginning in life. It’s health visitors, midwives, community workers and parents pulling together – guided by the Better Start partnership – to offer early help that actually works.
When Paulette Hamilton MP, acting chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, spoke recently to Civil Service World, she singled out Blackpool for praise. She’d visited as part of the Committee’s inquiry into the first 1,000 days of life and said what she saw here set an example for the rest of the country. She talked about how in Blackpool we “really tracked the mothers and were able to absolutely see what was going on in a family”.
The article also featured Dr Christine Farquharson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who told the Committee that national funding for early years support has fallen sharply since the days of Sure Start. At its peak in 2010, Sure Start was funded at just over £2 billion a year (in today’s money). The equivalent now going into family hubs is less than £600 million, even counting local authority budgets. That shows just how much less resource we now have to do such vital work.
Paulette is clear about the challenges this creates. Funding is patchy, resources are stretched and family hubs are left to piece together support from fragmented budgets. But she also highlighted how in Blackpool, the joined-up way we work through the Better Start partnership makes a real difference. That practical, connected approach is efficient and effective and it impressed the whole Committee.
As a new dad I walked into our Family Hubs sleep-deprived, worried and unsure what I was doing. But I walked out with reassurance, advice and community. That’s what investment in early years does. It builds stronger families and gives children a fair shot from day one.
What’s happening in Blackpool isn’t a lucky accident. It’s the result of a decade of work by dedicated people. They’ve shown what can be achieved when services work together and stay focused on what families actually need.
Now it’s time for government to match Blackpool’s efficiency and ambition – and to invest in it. If we’re serious about giving every child the best start, we have to invest properly, plan long-term and make sure this kind of partnership-led support is consistent and available to everyone. Here in Blackpool we have the answers to our own problems, and I’m confident that we now have a government that will empower us to implement them for good.
