EXCERPTS
Children's Minister Sarah Teather said Sure Start centres were wasting money on meeting the requirement to offer full day care of up to 40 hours per week in the most deprived communities because very few families took up the service.
But she also announced that the poorest families would have a new entitlement to 15 hours per week of free childcare for two-year olds, in addition to the free childcare for all three and four-year olds currently available.
Speaking at the Daycare Trust conference in London, Ms Teather said the Coalition wanted to remove the bureaucracy from Labour's flagship Sure Start programme.
Children's centres in the poorest areas would no longer be required to employ at least one member of staff who has a teaching and a professional early years qualification.
Anand Shukla, acting chief executive of Daycare Trust, said: "We are concerned about the ability of parents in deprived areas to access childcare places... particularly if there is no longer a requirement for children's centres to provide these places."
-reprinted from The Telegraph