By 2005, there were significant changes to the original concept of Sure Start, so the question of whether it had worked or not was confounded by the question of what it now was. From an area-based initiative of 250 local programmes, we were now tasked with delivering the commitments in Choice for Parents, the Best Start for Children: a Ten Year Strategy for Childcare. No longer an area-based policy for poor children, there would now be a Sure Start Children's Centre in every community, 3,500 in all. We were handing over control from Whitehall to local authorities, and we were allowing significantly more discretion on the part of local authorities in how the funding should be allocated within their defined number of Sure Start Children's Centres. What had been a programme designed explicitly for families in poor areas, was now meant for everyone, albeit with the expectation that the most generously funded Children's Centres would be in the poorest areas, particularly the original set of what had been the Sure Start Local Programme (SSLP) areas. While the funding was to be more flexible, the service model requirements were significantly tightened up. Many of the changes to the service model were a response to the evaluation results produced by the National Evaluation of Sure Start (NESS) team. Ministers took some disappointing results very seriously and used them to reshape the programme. However, virtually all ministers involved at this point, and indeed earlier on, continued to be sceptical about the evaluation design.

Chapter Five described both the process and the controversy surrounding the procurement of the evaluation for Sure Start. This chapter will:

• • review some of the challenges the original Sure Start design presented in evaluating Sure Start, by comparing Sure Start to another flagship Labour policy – the National Literacy Strategy;

• • describe the design of the evaluation;

• • summarise the key findings of the evaluation; and

• • explain how both politicians and civil servants responded to the findings and the implications this had for Sure Start.

As mentioned in earlier chapters, clashes of strongly held beliefs are as much a feature of this part of the Sure Start story as are different views about what evidence can and cannot tell us.