Children’s commissioner declares ‘state of emergency’ on young people’s lives
Rachel de Souza warns of ‘childhood lottery’ in her damning new report, as data analysis exposes stark regional divides in safety, mental health and education
A “national emergency” of childhood has been declared by the children’s commissioner for England after the most comprehensive data analysis ever conducted of the conditions in which young people are growing up.
In an interview with The Observer, Rachel de Souza said the lives of too many children were now “Dickensian with a modern twist” as young people are exploited to be drug mules and face new dangers in the online world. “I’m calling it a state of emergency because, as children’s commissioner, I cannot sit and do nothing,” she says. “It’s shocking to me that we would allow children to grow up in some of the situations they’re growing up in, and the narrative in Westminster is not about those children.”
The study, to be published on Monday, found that a third of children are not ready for school at the age of five, more than half of pupils do not achieve a good standard in their English and maths GCSEs at the age of 16, and 12% of young people feel unsafe in their local area. At least 1 million children had active referrals to mental health services last year.
The children’s commissioner analysed 162 measures of children’s lives, on health, education, criminality, housing and welfare. They included data on everything from access to green spaces to school absences, childhood obesity and encounters with the police.
Her team used 96 metrics to allocate scores to local authorities and identify the areas of the country where it is hardest to grow up. Middlesbrough in North Yorkshire, Hounslow in west London and Bradford in West Yorkshire are the most challenging places to be a child. Cheshire East and the London boroughs of Merton and Richmond upon Thames are the least challenging.
De Souza says she had found “massive disparities” around the country. Children in Blackpool, Lancashire, are 27 times more likely to be missing from education than pupils in Lambeth, south London, and 46 times more likely to be excluded than children from Wiltshire.
The proportion of children who get a good pass (grade 5 or above) in their English and maths GCSEs ranges from 70% in Richmond upon Thames to 31% in Knowsley, near Liverpool.
Almost a quarter of children in Croydon, south London, feel unsafe, compared with less than 7% of those in Bedford. Young people in Merseyside are at least times 13 times more likely to be stopped and searched than those in areas covered by West Mercia police.
In Redbridge, north-east London, there are only six outdoor play spaces for every 10,000 young people, compared with 61 for the 7,800 young people in Rutland in the East Midlands. Camden Borough Council in north London invested £421 in youth services for each teenager, but four local authorities reported zero expenditure: Slough, Herefordshire, and Halton and Warrington, both in Cheshire.
De Souza says there is a “childhood lottery” at work but “even in the best places there are problems”. Leicestershire is in the top 10 least challenging places to grow up, but has the lowest access to mental health support teams of any area.
Wokingham in Berkshire has low child poverty but also very low spending on youth services. A child in Westminster will be more likely to grow up facing multiple house moves and instability than a child in Hartlepool, County Durham.
Hampshire performs well overall, but its young people have one of the longest waits for mental health treatment: a median of 118 days from referral to second contact, compared with six in Rutland.
No area consistently delivers the full range of support that children need to thrive. “To inoculate children and allow them to have a childhood is increasingly difficult,” says De Souza. “It is clear that children in every part of the country face deep, unacceptable and avoidable challenges.”
Poverty is “in this picture but it’s not the whole story”, the children’s commissioner adds. Hounslow has the second lowest score in the data analysis, but Haringey, a north London borough with similar levels of deprivation, has the seventh highest ranking. The children’s commissioner says nursery provision and breakfast clubs were key drivers of its success.
Scores are highest on average in south-east England but two of the six highest scoring local authorities are in the north.
De Souza said she had been “utterly disgusted” by some of the things she had heard in her conversations with thousands of children around the country. In Middlesbrough, she met a group of pupils in a high-performing school. “They talked to me about how they’re learning to play the clarinet. But then they talked about the crackheads who pee on the wall outside, and they said: ‘We’re scared of going home’ and ‘It’s not safe to play outside.’
“Many had seen knife crime. There were concerns some had seen a murder and watched a body being brought out. It’s totally unacceptable in modern Britain for children to be in places like that.”
The children in the care of the state, where standards should be the most consistent, face some of the biggest variations. Some parts of the country are sending nearly 90% of their children in care to out-of-area placements, compared with less than 20% in other regions. In Tameside, Greater Manchester, half of looked-after children had three or more social workers in a year, while in Hartlepool it was 3%.
The data comes from the Department for Education and 10 other public bodies. Many of the metrics involve novel analysis and 42 have been newly gathered by the commissioner, using her statutory data powers.
De Souza warns that the nation seems “blind” to the younger generation and was too quick to stereotype teenagers. “We’re either hearing that they’re snowflakes who can’t cope, or they’re running around with masks and hoodies on,” she says. “I don’t buy into the idea that this is some kind of weak generation. I’m seeing the opposite. I’m seeing kids in the toughest environments really working hard to try to build a life.”
She calls on the prime minister to create a children’s emergency fund to bring services above a minimum standard in every part of the country. A deputy mayor should be appointed in each area as part of the devolution programme, she adds. “We need someone responsible for children because it’s too bad,” says the commissioner. “The hardest places are too hard. It’s not fair for any child, but right across the country, there’s too much disparity. This has to be a line in the sand.”
The former cabinet minister Alan Milburn, who is preparing to publish his recommendations on how to tackle the crisis of more than 1 million young people who are not in education, employment or training, has warned that the UK faces a “lost generation” if nothing is done to change the trajectory of children’s lives.
The education secretary, Lucy Powell, said the government was “filled with energy and drive to make sure no child is held back by where they grow up”. She promised to act on the challenges identified in the children’s commissioner’s report.
“We’re investing and reforming at every stage of a child’s journey, from more childcare support for their earliest years and higher standards in our schools, broader community support with the rollout of our national youth strategy and young futures hubs, to more training and job opportunities as they approach adulthood,” she said.
She added: “Alongside that, I’m bringing local leaders together to help shape the future of education in their areas. They know their communities, their young people and the opportunities on their doorstep, which is why we’re putting more power in their hands to deliver.
“Together, government and local leaders can unlock opportunity in every postcode, tackle the barriers holding young people back and make sure where a child grows up never limits what they can achieve.”
Middlesbrough
The North Yorkshire town is the hardest place to grow up in England. In the children’s commissioner’s analysis, it scored 408 out of a total of 960 possible points awarded on the basis of 10 points for each of 96 measures of childhood – the lowest score in the country. Middlesbrough has the highest rate of children feeling unsafe and the lowest percentage of young people who, by the end of the reception class in primary school, had achieved the expected level of development. There are relatively few playgrounds and high levels of school absence and exclusion.
Cheshire East
The north-west local authority is the least challenging place to grow up in England. It scored 730 out of 960 possible points, with a good performance across the board, taking it into the top spot. There are low rates of children in temporary accommodation and little school absence. Vaccination coverage is also high, and a large proportion of children have been to the dentist in the last 12 months. Cheshire police have a relatively low rate of use of force against children, and a high percentage of local schools provide wraparound childcare.
