This is the latest in a series of damning reports for the scheme, which was set up by Tony Blair to offer those in deprived areas access to early years help, including ante-natal care, parenting classes, childcare and advice for mothers on how to get back into work.

This latest research was carried out be the University of Durham, which studied 6,000 children a year aged four and five years over a five-year period in 124 primary schools. The children were not aware of being tested and completed a series of short exercises on a computer, designed to check their vocabulary, ability to count and to recognise shapes.

Dr. Christine Merrell, of Durham’s Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre led a team of researchers on the project and is unsure as to why such a huge investment on behalf of the government in preschool learning has yielded such negative results.

“One would have expected that the major government programmes would have resulted in some measurable changes in our sample of almost 35,000 children,” she said. “It is possible, however, that it is just still to early to measure.”

Sure Start, along with Every Child Matters and the Children Act formed the cornerstone of Labour’s last Election manifesto. Sure Start was influenced by the US initiative called Head Start, which has been deemed extremely successful. But the UK version has attracted its fair share of controversy.

Back in July of this year, another report – this time carried out by the University of Hull – claimed that Sure Start was largely failing certain ethnic groups. The study said Sure Start risked being a “missed opportunity” and that this was “very serious criticism” as those groups most needing help were missing out.

The report claimed that Sure Start was being taken up by middle class families and was not forging links with minority groups: “effectively excluding some already very marginalised communities”. It criticised the scheme for failing to employ translators, and for not employing enough staff from ethnic and minority communities.

In particular, the report claimed that “hard-to-reach” groups such as travellers, migrant workers and families of Bangladeshi origin were largely being failed by the scheme. Beverley Hughes, The Minister for Children, Families and Young People, said of the report. “There is still much more we need to do – especially in terms of using effective outreach to engage with the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children and that is why we have introduced a new requirement for every centre to run a home visiting and outreach programme for the parents of all new babies.”

Yet July’s report followed similar research carried out in December of last year by the National Audit Office saying once again that the neediest families were not being targeted by the Sure Start scheme. The NAO found that less than a third of the 200 Sure Start centres made any effort to reach out to vulnerable families. It concluded that although the scheme was popular, it might not constitute good value.

Almost a year ago, Tony Blair hailed Sure Start as one of the government’s greatest achievements. He wrote in the Guardian newspaper, “It has become a new frontier of a changing welfare state. Sure Start is now converting to offer a wider and larger programme of children's centres, with the benefit of increased overall levels of funding - and that programme today sees the one thousandth centre open. The programme target is 2,500 by the year 2008 - and full national coverage by the year 2010.

“This was a programme that was originally conceived to help children, but it is now offering much more than that. Very often it is the parents who, when given - for the very first time - some expert help and encouragement, benefit most by understanding their own potential and how they can develop it. There are truly inspirational stories of families whose lives have been transformed by their own efforts, but who have been liberated by a helping hand that was there when the families needed it. There is more to come.

“By the year 2010 there will be affordable 8am-6pm childcare for all kids between the ages of three and 14. As the extended schools programme helps to make the school a hub of community activity there will be more choices for learning being given to adults, as well as to the most disadvantaged children. There will be further improvements in maternity leave and nursery education. This is what a modern welfare state should do.”

Perhaps it is still too early to tell whether Sure Start and the other related government incentives for pre-schoolers has had any real positive effect. Dr. Merrell’s study itself has attracted some criticism due to the fact that it failed to identify which children, if any had taken part in the initiatives, although she pointed out that with 35,000 children involved, there had to be a significant number who had. She pointed out that the research proves the importance of continuous monitoring to see whether education initiatives really are working.

“High quality data needs to be used to track the impact of the evolving intervention. Only then can the government really measure what does and doesn’t work in education,” she said. As for reaching those most in need, this is also going to be a work in progress.

As the scheme matures, word of mouth as well as better liaison between centres and their communities is bound to make a difference. The criticism that too many “middle class” families use the scheme seems spurious. Most ambitious parents able to afford pre-school nurseries would prefer to use other outlets, where they can leave their children during the working day. A mixture of children from different backgrounds in any case would surely be a good thing for any community.

“We find Sure Start a real help,” Nick Hughes, a photographer living in South London with his wife and daughter told Education Today. “It provides Hannah with somewhere to meet other children of her own age, as she is an only child. It gives us some flexibility. I would really recommend it.”

Many others share his views: “Me and my family are from a deprived area and we have benefited a lot from having the support from our local Sure Start. My son who is well ahead for his age would not of had anywhere to learn and progress if it hadn’t been for the Sure Start nursery. For me any money spent on my local Sure Start was money well spent,” said K Marriott from the West Midlands on the Times Online website.

Let’s hope that this initiative by the government doesn’t suffer as a consequence of a “results” driven education system. In the six years since it was introduced, it has offered many families a lifeline in ways, which are not easily quantifiable. After all, instead of measuring how children perform on a series of computer tests aged five and six, perhaps it would be better to count how many mothers managed to get back to work, or how many children made new friends of their own age within their communities.

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