Labour’s Best Start in Life Strategy has got off to a good start – now comes the hard part

The strategy puts children’s development centre stage, signals a clear ambition to close the opportunity gap and sets a long-overdue vision for a historically fragmented sector. But now comes the hard part – supporting local areas to make this a reality on the ground in a fiscally constrained environment.

Labour’s strategy seeks to ‘square the circle’ to advance its opportunity mission

The expansion of government-funded childcare – first introduced by Labour in 1998 and accelerated under Rishi Sunak in 2023 – continues. So does the rollout of Family Hubs, now renamed Best Start Family Hubs, and extended from 75 to all 317 local authorities. The real challenge was always whether Labour could ‘square the circle’: continuing policies it inherited designed for other purposes (boosting parental employment was the principal aim of Sunak’s initiative) while reorienting them to meet a new set of goals – the Starmer government’s goal of getting 75% of children ‘school ready’ by 2028 and tackling inequality in the long term.

On this the strategy is partially successful. The lion’s share of spending is still tied to government-funded childcare for working families (excluding lowest-income households).i But not all, and the remaining early years spend will be targeted at driving up early education quality and tackling entrenched disadvantage – for example through introducing clearer pathways into the profession and financial incentives of up to £4,500 for early years teachers in disadvantaged areas.  

The strategy seeks to emulate Sure Start’s integrated approach, though is more limited  

Anyone familiar with the early years sector in recent years will tell you just how fragmented it is. Those facing persistent and multiple disadvantage – across family income, health, housing and education – are particularly badly affected, facing an intimidating, incoherent and poorly joined up set of services.

Emulating New Labour’s highly successful Sure Start model, the BSiL strategy aims to connect the dots to provide a more coherent offer, though again with limited resource. The new hubs will bring together professionals from midwifery, health visiting, early education and community services – physically and digitally – to streamline support (albeit in a stripped back version of the Sure Start model).  

The strategy also reflects commitments made in the 10 Year Health Plan last week – improving maternity care, bolstering health visiting, increasing access to vaccinations and tackling childhood tooth decay. And there’s a renewed focus on early support for parents, with investment in home learning and parenting programmes to bridge the gap before children enter formal education.

Data sharing also gets much-needed attention. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill – now in its final stages through parliament - promises to introduce duties on professionals to share safeguarding information, while a pilot for a single unique identifier could help services link records and better track children's development.

Taken together, these proposals set out a clearer vision of a more integrated early years system that has the potential to shift the dial for the families that need it most.  

The strategy acknowledges the need to steward the childcare market to achieve better outcomes  

The previous administration created a childcare market but largely left it to parental choice to drive quality and access. With the government set to fund around 80% of early education and childcare hours from September 2025, that hands-off approach is no longer tenable. A particularly important shift is the government’s signal that it will more actively shape the early years system to improve outcomes, a “market steward” role that the IfG first recommended more than a decade ago.ii

The strategy notes the growing influence of private equity in the childcare sector, warning of the same risks seen in adult and children’s social care: price rises, service disruption and limited incentives to serve deprived areas. The government wants to address this by working with charities, social enterprises and social investors to expand provision in communities that currently lack access, though this work is early stages and it may be some time before centres sponsored this way are up and running.

It also sets out a stronger market shaping role for local authorities and a requirement for them to develop ‘Best Start local plans’ to achieve the 2028 Opportunity mission milestone. These plans will sit under a new Local Government Outcomes Framework, with statutory local targets to improve school readiness. New powers for local and mayoral authorities are also on the table – to ensure there are enough high-quality places and a genuine choice for families.  

Success will depend in large part on local capacity and support  

The risk is clear. Requiring local authorities to meet statutory ‘school readiness’ targets, shape local childcare markets, and drive collaboration could put stretched systems under further strain. Without the right funding, powers and guidelines, there’s a danger that targets are missed or headline metrics met at the expense of children furthest behind.iii

The strategy contains some promising signs of support: a new digital tool to help school and trust leaders identify areas for improvement, a doubling of Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs to share evidence-based practice, market-shaping guidance for local authorities and a new “Test, Learn and Grow” programme to support local innovation.  

These are welcome steps, but more will be needed to set local areas up for success. There is a risk that delegating market stewardship responsibilities to local areas will result in an incoherent regulatory landscape that is difficult for providers to operate in.  Interventions in the market may also affect providers’ viability, impacting quality and access for families.  

The government should aim for a ‘sweet spot’: introduce the right incentives to pivot the market towards delivering desired outcomes without undermining the number of childcare places available to meet growing demand. Central government will need to offer a clear, well-informed steer to local authorities in how to effectively steward local childcare markets to deliver better outcomes for children and families.

Labour’s strategy marks a serious – and welcome – step towards delivering on its long-term mission. But success will now come down to the support and space local areas are given to deliver.