Plans for five childrens centres across the county are to be scrapped and a further five will have to incorporated into existing facilities following a cost-cutting review by education chiefs.

County councillors are expected this week to agree to the plans to scale back the latest phase of its programme in a move that could save it £3.8million.

It comes after KCC said it wanted to take stock of the initiative.

The centres evolved from the Government;s Sure Start initiative and the original aim was to have centres in every community to offer welfare advice and help for more than 83,000 children and their parents.

KCC said it wanted to review the latest phase of the project to see if it could cut back on the number of centres that would be built from scratch.

Now a report has recommended that five be axed from the latest round and plans to build a further five be scratched.

The five to be scrapped are at Biddenden, near Ashford; Bearsted, Maidstone; Kemsing Primary School, Sevenoaks; the Discovery Primary School, Malling and Raynehurst Primary School, Gravesend.

New centres will not now be built at Wye, Ashford; Coxheath Primary School, Maidstone; East Peckham Primary School, Tonbridge and Pembury Primary School, Tunbridge Wells.

Instead, they will be placed in existing buildings already offering some kind of community service.

The plans for the remaining 20 in the scheme remain as they were when the review started.

KCC says the decision to scale back the programme will save about £3.8million from the overall costs of all its centres, which is estimated at £30million.

The funding has come from the Government and KCC, which has agreed to spend £7million to meet a shortfall.

In a letter explaining the reasons for the review, KCC cabinet member for children's services Cllr Sarah Hohler said the authority wanted to "minimise the number of new builds as far as possible."