Business Plan, 2026-27

2026–27 will be my final year as Children’s Commissioner, marking the conclusion of a six-year term that began in March 2021. It is a moment to take stock of how children’s lives have changed during that time, and to focus on the work that still needs to be done to give every child in England the chance to thrive.

When I took up this role, the country was just beginning to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. In my first week as Children’s Commissioner, children were beginning to return to school following a second period of remote learning. The disruption children experienced during that period has shaped a generation. Many of those children have continued their journey through education and adolescence in circumstances that remain challenging. Rising absence from school, increasing exposure to risks online, growing pressures within the SEND system, and long waits for support all demonstrate that the consequences of that period are still being felt. Too many children who lived through the pandemic risk becoming a generation whose needs are never addressed.

Six years is a significant portion of a child’s life. Many of the children who were beginning secondary school when I started this role are now approaching adulthood. Others have spent most of their childhood navigating systems that too often struggle to meet their needs. This final year provides an opportunity not only to reflect on the evidence gathered during my term, but – crucially – to use it to drive meaningful change.

This year I will be bringing together the knowledge and insight gathered over the past six years to provide a clear picture of childhood in England today. My new project, Mapping Childhood, will identify where children are thriving, where inequalities are most severe, and where action is most urgently needed. A child’s postcode should never determine their opportunities, yet the evidence shows that where children grow up still matters deeply. Mapping Childhood will allow us to tell that story clearly and help direct attention to the places that need it most.

Children’s voice will remain the foundation of all of my work. Since 2021, a million children have shared their views, including through the national surveys The Big Ask and The Big Ambition. This year we will complete that series by launching a final survey, The Big Future, giving children the chance to describe the world they are growing up in today and the future they hope to see. In particular it will seek their views on the future, their hopes for their local area, and the impact on their lives of technological change.

Children’s participation will continue to be central to the work of the office. We will host our second Festival of Childhood in Manchester, bringing together 600 young people to share their experiences directly with decision-makers. Our Youth Ambassadors, advisory boards and Young Voices Forum will also continue to play a key role in shaping both our work and that led by government.

Over the past year, we have also worked with government departments to embed children’s perspectives in policymaking, in a way that children themselves have told me has not been possible for them in the past. That collaboration will continue, making sure children’s views and experiences are heard by adult decision-makers, and we will produce a resource that codifies children’s participation by setting out practical guidance for how organisations can meaningfully involve children in shaping the policies that affect them.

Our work across the year will continue to focus on the areas that children consistently tell us matter most: children’s social care, community, education, health, family, jobs and skills, and a better world. Across each pillar, it is the children to whom I have a particular duty – those with a social worker, living away from home or with care experience – whom I hold most in my mind. This plan can only work if it works for them. 

These priorities are closely reflected in The Children’s Plan, which set out the office’s vision for how services must work together to support every child to attend, engage and thrive. A key focus in the year ahead will be continuing to advocate for the recommendations set out in that plan, particularly ensuring that every child receives the education they deserve and that reforms to the SEND system are implemented effectively. Through the new oversight role for the Children’s Commissioner set out in the Schools White Paper, we will also make sure these reforms deliver meaningful change in practice.

In my final year, throughout all my work, I will be pushing for the implementation of a robust single unique identifier. The tragic murder of Sara Sharif, like other cases before it, demonstrated the worst consequences of vital information not being shared between agencies. Education, health, social care and justice services must be able to communicate effectively if children are to be protected. The single unique identifier has the potential to be a transformational building block for children’s services, ensuring professionals working with children can identify concerns earlier, share information appropriately, and coordinate support more effectively.

This ambition runs through every area of our work. Whether we are looking at education, children’s social care, health services or justice, the same challenge repeatedly emerges: children fall through the gaps between systems that are not designed to work together. By championing the effective implementation of a single unique identifier, we can help build a system that sees the whole child and responds to their needs more quickly and coherently. Ensuring services both share information responsibly but also act on it will be essential to prevent future tragedies and provide the joined-up support children deserve.

The theme of this final year is therefore simple: to look back, listen, and plan for the future. Looking back allows us to understand what has changed during this term. Listening puts children’s experiences firmly at the heart of our priorities. Planning for the future means pushing decision-makers to use the lessons of the past six years to create lasting improvements for children across England.

Childhood is brief, and the opportunities children have during those years shape the rest of their lives.

In this final year as Commissioner, my focus will remain the same as it has always been: bringing children’s voices to the heart of national debates, explaining the evidence about their lives so that it is more widely understood, and pushing those people with the power to make decisions to act on what children tell us.