Ciarán Hayes leads the Sure Start Statutory Framework Team in the Department for Education. The team works on children’s centre sufficiency issues and statutory guidance.
He previously worked on creating and implementing the Early Intervention Grant, early intervention policy and payment-by-results.

He joined the department as an economist working on school competition and choice, productivity issues and the Centre for the Economics of Education.

Before working on Sure Start policy he led the Children, Young People and Families Economic Analysis Unit during the 2010 Spending Review, focusing especially on the economic case for investment in the early years.