Ministers are to fund a network of “family hubs” in England as part of a £500m package to support parents and children.

The centres in 75 different areas will provide a “one stop shop” for support and advice, the government said.

The funding, to be announced by the chancellor in Wednesday’s Budget, will also go towards breastfeeding advice and mental health services.

Labour called the plans a “smokescreen” for failing to deliver for families. 

Kate Green MP, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said family hubs were “a sticking plaster for a fractured childcare and children services landscape”.

“This supposed commitment rings hollow after 11 years of Conservative cuts have forced the closure of over a thousand children’s centres, cutting off the early learning that sets children up for life,” she said.

The funding includes £200m to support 300,000 families who face complex issues that could lead to family breakdown. 

Some £82m will be given to 75 local authorities to fund the new family hubs, while another £100m will go towards mental health support for expectant parents.

And £50m will be spent on breastfeeding support – including antenatal classes and one-to-one support – to build upon best practice from areas such as Tower Hamlets in London, which has the highest breastfeeding rates at six to eight weeks in England.

The study, commissioned by the Family and Parenting Institute charity (FPI), examines the impact of the package of tax and benefit reforms being introduced between January last year and April 2014, including the introduction of universal credit, which brings together benefit and tax credits.

According to the report the income of families with children will feel the most impact, falling by 4.2% in the five years to 2015. By contrast, families without children will see a loss of only 0.9%, equating to £215, underlining the degree to which spending cuts are impacting on support for children.”

Bearing in mind the fact that we know in addition to this that it costs more to live in rural than urban England I suspect it will be even tougher for rural families to get by in future in this context than their urban counterparts.

It continues: “A family with three children where each parent earns £26,000 will lose some £1,700 a year, and thousands more if their salaries fail to keep up with inflation. Even the Chancellor’s concessions on fuel duty are being eaten up by higher inflation almost before they begin: rising world oil prices have already wiped out the 1p fuel duty cut announced in the Budget.”

I think there are some costs which will disproportionately hit rural communities notwithstanding the easing off on fuel duty and dont forget in terms of the points made about salaries failing to keep pace with inflation that rural areas are far more heavily dependent on the public sector – which is facing and experiencing significant job losses.

Perhaps time to have a look again at the rural vulnerability index Dan Bates and I have developed to see how vulnerable your economy is.

You can find it on the local authority pages of the RSN website or I can send it to you if you ask me nicely.