More than a million families are making use of local children’s centres, research by a national children's charity has revealed.

The Children's Centre Census 2013 produced by national charity 4Children shows children’s centres have experienced a 73% increase in the number of families using their services in the last year.

Nearly two thirds of disadvantaged families with children under the age of five, around 320,000 households make use of children’s centres, the figures also indicate.

The charity is urging councils to keep funding children's centres.

But the census finds two thirds of centres (66%) are running on smaller budgets compared with the previous year, 31% plan to cutback services in a year’s time and one in fifty expects to close by this time next year.

The charity argues that valuable work preventing family breakdown would be put at risk if council funding cutbacks are realised and calls of local authorities and central government to place children’s centres at the heart of intervention strategies.

4Children also recommends that there be a standard of universal provision throughout the national network of children’s centres and calls for extra investment through extending the pupil premium to the early years.

‘Local authorities are under extreme financial pressure to make tough decisions, but the long-term social and financial rewards will come with filling up, not closing down these crucial centres, which have already provided a cost-effective lifeline for hundreds of thousands of families,’ said Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4Children.