Children from low-income families who grew up near a Sure Start centre achieved better GCSEs than their peers – says a report this month.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has found those living near a centre performed up to three grades better than students further away.

It’s a somewhat disheartening review of a service that has seen more than 1,300 sites closed in the last few years as government funding has been decimated.

And that’s why whoever wins the next general election must bring the Sure Start scheme back.

Sure Start was launched by Labour in 1998 – built on evidence that a child’s early years were the most critical and closely connected to their overall life chances.

Close to £500 million was ploughed into the project and an initial 250 children’s centres built – a figure that within the decade would morph into the thousands.

They offered everything from health visiting services and support for special needs to family stay and play sessions and guidance for parents looking to return to work.

In communities where families were disjointed or lacked help, the staff extended that support with home visiting services, outreach work and even some childcare for under fours.

When I started as a junior reporter we often visited Sure Start centres and it wasn’t putting it mildly to say they were clearly a life-line for those using them.

Parents saw everything from their children’s speech to social skills and behaviour improve – and crucially had somewhere to turn when they were struggling. Critical safety nets for a generation often raising their children miles away from wider family and that traditional village network.

Data over the years has even suggested there were fewer hospital admissions for children from deprived areas who were under the nurturing wings of Sure Start staff, such was the impact they had.

When I was a child I remember accompanying my mum and younger siblings to the local health clinic. We’d walk, sometimes weekly, me clutching the frame of our pram or pushchair.

While my overriding memory was of big boxes of toys, biscuits and unhappy babies being stripped off for their turn in giant metal weighing scales – I imagine Sure Start centres offered much of the same support parents had in the 70s and 80s.

Where professionals knew whole families by name and there was always someone to ask if you had a question about your child’s health that didn’t justify an hour’s wait on hold to a GP.

As a society we’re very quick these days to find fault with much of the behaviour of parents and children. Judgement comes thick and fast with little appreciation of some of the mitigating circumstances that can make raising a child today difficult.

Sure Start appreciated those circumstances, understood the education and healthcare systems and perhaps even their failings – and rolled up its sleeves to ensure every under five and their family who dropped in received textbook care, love and attention.

And while it may have taken almost two decades to see concrete evidence of its success there’s no denying it transformed the lives of children.

Whoever gets the next set of keys to Downing Street will need bold plans to fix the impact of the cost of living crisis and to address the rising health inequalities being seen across the UK.

The resurrection of the Sure Start programme feels like an excellent place to start.