Introduction

Building on the legacy of Sure Start and children’s centres, the family hubs programme was established in 75 local areas from 2021/22.  Family hubs aimed to give families ‘the support they need, when they need it’ through transforming how services are delivered. They brought together services across a local area, sharing a common purpose to increase access, connections and relationships for families and between, and with, professionals.  

In July 2025, ‘Giving every child the best start in life’ outlined how the government will improve child development and ensure that all children have the chance to achieve and thrive.  This included the commitment to fund the roll out of Best Start Family Hubs to every local authority – providing high quality support to parents and children from pregnancy to the early years and beyond, open to all and based in disadvantaged communities.  Local progress will be measured through the early learning goals in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework with local targets set to achieve 75% of all children reaching a Good Level of Development (GLD) by 2028.

Notwithstanding the intention stated in ‘Giving every child the best start in life’ to ‘explore whether a more detailed outcomes framework, under the Best Start in Life umbrella, drawing on the lessons of Every Child Matters, would improve join up of services locally’, the family hub approach and wider Best Start in Life policy are not yet driven and underpinned by a shared view of the outcomes sought for local families or babies, children and young people.  This lack of a consistent, common approach to how outcomes are defined and measured (for family hubs and across wider children’s services) leads to missed opportunities to connect joint efforts between partners, to capture individual and collective impact, to share learning and to drive integration and transformation towards greater efficiency and effectiveness across local family hubs networks and the wider children and family services system.

Background

Family hub leaders in London are part of a Community of Practice that meets every two - three months, supported by the National Centre for Family Hubs (NCFH) (commissioned by Department for Education (DfE) and delivered by Anna Freud until March 2025 and by Local Government Association (LGA) since July 2025).  

At one of their meetings in early summer 2024, it was apparent that all areas were grappling with developing an outcomes framework for their family hubs and it was suggested that they should work together to create a common approach across London. Aware of the national movement towards developing a common approach to outcomes for all babies, children and young people, the Common Outcomes for Children and Young People Collaborative, its Common Outcomes Framework and common language, it was agreed to link with this work as the key starting point and framework for our collective action and engage Elaine Fulton (Independent consultant and Director of the Common Outcomes for Children and Young People Collaborative) to support the work.