This part of the Sure Start story describes its change from a timelimited initiative to a permanent part of the welfare state, what in law every parent has a right to expect in their local neighbourhood for their young children. This chapter will tell three key stories in the development of Sure Start:

• • the impact on Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) of the merger at the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) of Sure Start, Early Years Education and Childcare, and particularly the impact of the 2002 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR);

• • the development of Choice for Parents, the Best Start for Children: A Ten Year Strategy for Childcare, the document produced by the Treasury and DfES that set the framework for early years and childcare services for the foreseeable future; and

• • the launch of the Ten Year Strategy and the media uproar following the publication, which heralded the end of Sure Start.

The backdrop of these three strands is the development of the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda. As the DfES took over responsibility for more and more aspects of policy concerning children, keeping Sure Start separate and special became increasingly untenable. What started out as key delivery aims for children under four – joined-up services designed flexibly to deliver improved outcomes for young children – increasingly became the aims for all children. The framework for all children, the ECM agenda, had to include the youngest and the poorest children. The 2002 and 2004 CSRs were moving Sure Start inexorably from a specialist, ring-fenced cross-departmental initiative to the mainstream of children's services.

While the Childcare Review in 2002 started this journey, the publication of a major report, Choice for Parents, the Best Start for Children: A Ten Year Strategy for Childcare (HMT, 2004) committed the government to the end destination. The implications for what were SSLPs were greeted with dismay by some and enthusiasm by others. Certainly, the Sure Start experience as an innovative initiative with time-limited funding was drawing to a close. SSLPs, all now Children's Centres, were to be integrated into a comprehensive service for all children and families. Three streams of work were identified at the end of Chapter Three: early education for all children; childcare for working parents; and integrated services for poor children.