The government’s target for 75% of five-year-olds to achieve a good level of development (GLD) by 2028 requires local authorities, health partners and the wider early years system to shift their local systems toward earlier identification, improve multi-agency collaboration and use more data-informed decision-making.

We worked with local authorities as they developed their local plans, providing resources, guidance and opportunities for connection. Now that 151 of the plans have been published, we have analysed them to find out what the main challenges and priorities for local authorities are, so we can make sure we offer support that is tailored to their needs. We did our analysis using large language models as research assistants to find the information we needed and summarise themes. You can read more about our methodology below.

Many of the challenges we found were universal and unsurprising: speech, language, and communication is the single biggest developmental barrier, there are persistent and worsening attainment gaps between children eligible for free school meals and their peers, fragmented systems are forcing families to constantly retell their story, and SEND pathways are strained by local capacity overwhelm and workforce burnout. But we also found challenges specific to different geographies and demographics.

Here are four things we found in our analysis.

In northern metropolitan areas and councils with high overall deprivation, poverty is generational, deeply entrenched and concentrated in specific neighbourhoods, driving acute physical health issues like high childhood dental decay. But in commuter towns with lower levels of deprivation, poverty is hidden in isolated pockets and risks being overlooked; children eligible for school meals living in lower-deprivation areas often have worse GLD scores than their peers in higher-deprivation zones. The cost-of-living crisis has increased this divide, driving up food bank usage across vulnerable households regardless of postcode.

Whereas councils with high poverty levels are taking a whole neighbourhood approach with co-located health interventions (for example, they are embedding dental care within local hubs), councils with lower deprivation are taking a much more targeted approach - to be successful, they will have to use more granular postcode data alongside local intelligence to find and proactively engage with those families that may otherwise be missed.

London boroughs, commuter towns, and low-deprivation areas frequently cite shortages of affordable housing as the main driver of family stress, leaving thousands of children in temporary, overcrowded accommodation. In rural communities, housing stress more often takes the form of physical isolation paired with fuel poverty.

Urban councils can identify families within temporary accommodation and provide support to them by integrating early years teams directly with housing services. In rural councils, plans are tackling the challenge of isolation by establishing networked hubs in local community venues, such as village halls, libraries, and schools, to bring services directly to families.

In rural local authorities, long travel distances and a lack of public transport - sometimes referred to as "transport deserts" - create a physical barrier to reaching services. In commuter towns, rigid nine-to-five service hours mean working parents often cannot attend family hubs or health checks.

In London and the larger, diverse cities outside of London, the barriers are less about logistics and more cultural and systemic. With high rates of English as an additional language (EAL) and digital-only booking systems that can sometimes be tricky to navigate, families can struggle to understand and book onto services. The plans from local authorities in diverse urban areas also highlight how families can be distrustful of social services due to fear of judgment or past discrimination, which means vulnerable families often stay away from universal support.

Local authorities must match the delivery of services to parents’ particular circumstances. Areas with high numbers of commuters will need to extend hub opening hours into evenings and weekends, whereas rural local authorities are focussing on improving their home learning environments. They could also focus on more mobile delivery services, and have recognised the crucial integration of services and how a “no wrong door” approach will be key. Urban local authorities may need to partner with key people within the local community, focussing on rebuilding trust and connecting with communities that are wary of services, alongside providing alternative ways to register than just digital routes. Nesta’s parent engagement playbook has suggestions and case studies of how to overcome these barriers.

Areas with low deprivation and commuter towns have explicitly highlighted the exclusion and marginalisation of fathers in early years care. To tackle this, councils are introducing specific plans and cross-cutting priorities to better welcome, involve and meet the needs of fathers.

The same areas also report distinct, severe attainment gaps for some minority communities. Engaging these communities in co-design and outreach will help tackle the attainment gap.

An initiative designed to improve physical access in rural transport deserts will do nothing to improve access in dense urban boroughs where the cultural distrust or housing overcrowding is more of a barrier. Similarly, addressing the hidden, extreme disadvantage gap in an affluent commuter town requires a completely different outreach strategy than tackling entrenched, neighborhood-wide poverty in a northern city.

Local authorities have taken into account the specific challenges in their areas when setting their Best Start in Life plans. To support them as they deliver their plans over the next few years, the government and wider sector needs to provide support which is adaptable and flexible - so that through tailored approaches, more children can be reached and given the chance to develop to their full potential in the early years.

Find out more about our support offer for local authorities.