Best Start in Life Local Plan

Introduction

On the 7  July 2025 the Government launched Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life, also known as Best Start in Life. This policy paper has a focus on family support, school readiness and children achieving good levels of development at the end of reception.

As part of Best Start in Life each local authority needs to have a Best Start in Life Local Plan. This plan needs to be reviewed regularly to ensure continued development within communities for babies, young children and their families.

Why is the pregnancy and early childhood period so important?

Babies start learning about their world from the moment of conception onwards, through the sensitive responsiveness of their parents, siblings, carers, and wider community. Even during pregnancy, babies are listening to and recognising the voices of their family and taking in whether their environment feels calm, safe, and welcoming. When we follow their unique signals and needs from the start, babies learn healthy rhythms for sleeping, eating, movement and being able to take delight in those who care for them.

Supporting parents and carers is key for children to have a best start in life. Being a parent or carer of a baby or young child is consistently intense, worrying, exhausting, relentless and, if we are lucky, peppered with moments of joy. Parents need a community of other families to share this journey, and benefit from supportive, accessible, and thoughtful universal and specialist services. These should be within communities and neighbourhoods so that support is local and convenient. Parents want their children to be happy and healthy and in Surrey we want to enable each baby, child, parent, carer, and family to have the Best Start possible.

There is an important golden thread that runs throughout pregnancy and the early years, that has a significant impact on children's lifelong health and wellbeing, which is the quality of their relationships with their attachment figures (parents, close family, and carers). The first 1000 days of life (conception to age two) the main foundation stone for babies is to form secure relationships with sensitive and responsive parents and carers in nurturing environments at home and in the community. In the second 1000 days (age two to age five) toddlers and young children are often developmentally ready to engage with exploring their world and their independence. In order to do this successfully they need their parents and carers to support them with learning how to manage emotions in response to daily life experiences.

For children with additional needs in the early years, we want to ensure early identification and intervention through access to services. We know that having a child with an additional need (SEND) sometimes adds to the support families need. We want to ensure that families are empowered to make informed decisions for their child.

As parents, practitioners, and communities we all influence the experiences of babies and children from pregnancy onwards by the way we listen, show kindness, understand, and meet the myriad needs of families. We know that we can make a difference to children's lives beyond the age of five, however these early days are the greatest opportunity to make the biggest difference to babies and children starting life well.

Surrey in context

Surrey is in the Southeast of England and has one County Council and 11 district and borough councils. As of mid-2024, the estimated population for the county is 1.2 million with the number of children under 5 years old estimated at 58,601.

On 1 April 2027, Surrey County Council will split into two new unitary authorities; East Surrey and West Surrey. The district and borough councils will no longer exist as separate councils and will be part of the new unitary authorities.

East Surrey

East Surrey will cover the areas of Epsom and Ewell, Elmbridge, Moley Valley, Reigate and Banstead, and Tandridge. Within the area of East Surrey there will be approximately 26,678 children aged 0 to 5 years old.

West Surrey

West Surrey will cover the areas of Spelthorne, Runnymede, Surrey Heath, Woking, Guildford, and Waverley. Within West Surrey the number of children aged 0 to 5 years old will be 31,923 approximately.

Early Education and Childcare: Access and Quality

In 2025, the data for the early education and childcare landscape showed a good level of available places, with 525 group providers (nurseries, daycare and pre-schools) and 982 childminders. In the East of the county there are 249 group providers and 491 childminders, and in the West of the county there are 266 group providers and 491 childminders.

In the year until the 31 August 2025, the number of early education and childcare settings registered with Ofsted in Surrey was 1,535. With 157 graded as Outstanding and 989 graded Good. There were 381 early education and childcare settings awaiting an inspection.

As of November 2025, a revised Ofsted inspection framework was introduced with five new gradings across 6 evaluations. These grading are Exceptional, Strong Standard, Expected Standard, Needs Attention and Urgent Improvement. Alongside these evaluation areas, settings are judged to have either 'met' or 'not met' expected standards of safeguarding. Further guidance on understanding Ofsted report cards and grades can be found on the on the government website.

Surrey Communities

Surrey has a wide range of diverse communities, spanning both rural villages and more densely populated urban areas. This mix creates varied local needs, experiences and access to services. The Surrey Health and Wellbeing Strategy, was updated in March 2026 to reflect the English Indices of Deprivation published in October 2025. The Health and Wellbeing Strategy outlines the priority populations for the county as a whole and identifies the Key Neighbourhoods across East and West Surrey. Within the 2026 update there is a renewed focus on babies, children and young people.

Best Start in Life prioritises families who may need a little extra support, as highlighted in the Health and Wellbeing Strategy. In particular:

• children who have English as a second language
• children from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heritage
• children living in or at risk of living in poverty
• children experiencing multiple disadvantage

There is also consideration to families who don’t interact with digital or in-person services. This will form the basis for some of the work with parents, carers and family services outlined in the action plan below.

Data mapping

A map of Surrey was provided by the Surrey County Council Analysis and Evaluation Team. This collated data for:

• under 5 population,
• indicators of disadvantage,
• Additional Needs and Disabilities,
• Good Levels of Development (GLD),
• Income Deprivation Affecting Children (IDACI),
• Early Learning for 2-year-olds funding (formerly known as Funded Early Education for Two-year-olds (FEET)),
• Family Centre involvement for families with under 5s,
• and health data.

This data, combined with local insight from teams working within communities, informed the selection of the first two Best Start Family Hub sites and helped identify priority areas for future hubs.

The data map shows areas with lower numbers of children achieving a Good Level of Development tend to overlap with areas where there are higher numbers of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller families. When looking at the whole county, the data shows 49.2% children from the Gypsy and Roma communities achieve a Good Level of Development at the end of reception, this is lower for children from the Irish Travelling community at 25.9%. These are the lowest levels of GLD across all minority groups. People of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heritage are also a priority population for the Health and Wellbeing Strategy, adults CORE20plus5 and the children and young people CORE20plus5.

Across Surrey’s boroughs, the number of children eligible for Early Learning for 2-year-old funding varies, this highlights different levels of need across the county. As of January 2025, 76% of children eligible under the financial criteria are accessing Early Learning for 2-year-olds funding in an early education and childcare setting. In Summer term 2026, there will be 1,347 children that are eligible for Early Learning for 2-year-olds funding across Surrey.

Local Targets

The Government has set the Good Level of Development as a measure for each Local Authority to assess whether it is providing support that meets the needs of families and carers.

A Good Level of Development is a measure of progress for children in the summer term of their reception year and is assessed by a teacher. To achieve a good level of development, a child must reach the expected level in all three prime areas and in two of the specific areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). These are assessed through 12 Early Learning Goals by the class teacher.

Prime areas:

1. Communication and Language: Listening, understanding, and speaking.
2. Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED): Self-regulation, managing self, and building relationships.
3. Physical Development: Gross motor skills (movement/balance) and fine motor skills (hand control).

Specific areas:

1. Literacy: Comprehension, word reading, and writing.
2. Mathematics: Numbers and numerical patterns.

The national measure from the Government states that 75% of all children will achieve a good level of development by the summer term of their reception year in the 2027-28 school year. Each local authority has their own set of targets to reach. In Surrey the targets are:

• 80% of all children achieve a good level of development
• And 53.4% of children eligible for Free School Meals achieve a good level of development

In 2025, 74.1% of all children in Surrey achieved a good level of development at the end of reception. For children who are eligible for Free School Meals 46.1% of children achieved a good level of development.

Long Term Focus

Families First Partnership Programme

Both the Families First Partnership Programme and Best Start in Life recognise that pregnancy and the early years are a crucial stage in a child’s development and a key moment for getting support right. In the coming years, teams across health, education, children’s social care and the voluntary sector will work together to maintain a strong joined up focus on early support for families.

Neighbourhood Working

Neighbourhood Area Committees

Neighbourhood Area Committees (NACs) are the how we involve communities in local government reorganisation in Surrey. NACs and Best Start in Life work together to make sure families get the right support close to home. NACs bring local people, councillors and services together to understand what families need in their area. Best Start in Life focuses on giving children strong early support from pregnancy to age five. By working side by side, they help create joined-up, local services that are easier for families to access.

Neighbourhood Health

The Neighbourhood Health teams and Best Start in Life both aim to make support for families easier to access and more joined up. The Neighbourhood Health Framework brings health and care services closer to where people live, while Best Start in Life focuses on giving children the strongest start from pregnancy to age five.

Together, these programmes, alongside Best Start in Life, make it easier for families to get the right support at the right time, with local teams working closely together across health, education and community services.

Best Start for Surrey Ambitions

The government has set targets for local authorities until 2028. We have set the ambitions below to be reviewed in 2030.

Ambition 1: Promote and facilitate good health, emotional wellbeing and healthy relationships

Pregnant women and other pregnant people, babies, children and families’ health, emotional wellbeing and relationships are supported, and the needs of parents and carers are considered as fundamental to supporting their baby and/ or child.

Ambition 2: Recognise and promote the importance of development and early learning

Families are the centre of a system which understands and enables babies and children to learn and develop holistically. Children flourish in communities where health, early education and social care professionals come together with caregivers to ensure that every child can thrive.

Ambition 3: Enable partnership working and collaboration

Pregnant women and other pregnant people, babies, children, parents and families achieve their potential and thrive through the support of practitioners who collaborate and work together as part of an integrated early years system.

Ambition 4: Recognise the benefit of fully inclusive services, communities and neighbourhoods

The pregnancy and early years system proactively created equal opportunities and support for vulnerable families in order to develop a culture in Surrey of acceptance and inclusivity with the greatest impact on outcomes for all.

Action Plan