Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) have enjoyed one of the highest ever profiles of any UK government initiative concerning children and families. Such visibility carried both advantages and disadvantages and also affected the task of evaluation. While the main advantage was that SSLPs were, from the outset, of interest at the highest levels of government, this led to the major disadvantage: the short-term perspective often adopted by politicians in search of signs of its positive impact (Glass, 2006; Jack, 2006;) and, closely related, the attendant high level of publicity granted by commentators to some although not all of the evaluation findings. Perhaps inevitably, therefore, early findings of rather modest impact on individual children (see Chapters Eight and Nine) received widespread coverage and other results, including those pertaining to the process of implementing SSLPs and addressed in this chapter, were often neglected.

The research team studying SSLP implementation had two key purposes – to provide data that could inform the Impact Study of the National Evaluation of Sure Start (NESS) and to generate insights into increasing the smooth and effective functioning of SSLPs (see Foreword). In other words, the data collected by the team studying implementation were intended, from the very start, to provide insights for policy makers and practitioners on the ground, during the course of the initiative, not only at its completion. The contribution of the implementation team to the Impact Study is reflected in the conclusions about programme variability presented in Chapter Nine of this volume. However, the particular focus of this chapter is on the existing and future implications of findings pertaining to implementation for the development of community-based services for young children and their families.

As set out in Chapter One, a set of policy drivers determined the original objectives of SSLPs and, as of this writing in early 2007, continue to influence the development of services for children and families. The three key imperatives of SSLPs were to facilitate increased access to services; encourage and stimulate better collaboration between agencies and professionals; and develop new ways of working. Therefore, in spite of the limited life of SSLPs as separate entities, following their incorporation since 2005 into Children's Centres, their experiences remain likely to be of relevance to the task of designing and delivering improved services to children and families in community-based settings.