Child poverty: the crisis we can’t keep ignoring
Child poverty will continue to rise during this Parliament unless the Government commits to a bold, broad response. We are one of the most prosperous nations yet the number of children living in poverty is shocking and it is a cause for national shame. Child poverty has long been a fundamental problem facing Britain, and […]
Politicians must take child poverty out of the ‘too difficult box’ and come up with a big, bold plan to fix it
Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, is today (Thursday) publishing a call from a cross-party collection of politicians and campaigners calling for urgent action to tackle the blight of child poverty. The set of short essays includes contributions from Robert Halfon MP, chair of the Education Select Committee, DWP Select Committee Chair Stephen Timms […]
Child ‘food poverty’ is just one symptom of a wider injustice: poverty
To truly solve a problem, you must first properly define it. And the problem of child food poverty in the UK today is not down to a lack of food. It is instead that too many families do not have enough income to afford to put food on the table. Child ‘food poverty’ is just […]
Work should free more families from poverty: here’s how we achieve it
One of our great national successes over the last couple of decades has been the sustained rise in employment among parents, especially lone parents and mothers in couples. But rising employment has been overtaken by rising in-work poverty. Work should free families from poverty, but the majority of children in poverty now live in working […]
We need a national plan to eradicate child poverty
In 1999, I set out the government’s path to end child poverty through a 20-year mission. While ambitious, long-term commitments help focus minds, that pledge made clear that we believed that tolerating child poverty was indefensible and it should – and could – be tackled head on. In the years that followed, Labour governments took […]
Tackling the impact of child poverty
The harsh reality of child and family poverty has always had a devastating impact on the wellbeing and life chances of many children in this country. The recent pandemic has turned what was already a crisis into a tsunami of need. In the words of the 2020 ADCS discussion paper, Building a country that works […]
Lockdown, poverty and the disadvantage gap
The events over the last year have not only had a deep and disastrous effect on the lives of disadvantaged young people but have also thrown a new light on the disturbing disparities that already existed. We know that the loss of learning during lockdown disproportionately affects children from disadvantaged groups. The digital divide, with […]
How should policy support family incomes in the coronavirus crisis?
The coronavirus crisis has had a big impact on family finances. More than a quarter of adults saw their incomes fall during the initial lockdown period, and 23 per cent of adults still had lower income as the economy reopened (June-September) than before the crisis. And the longer-term impact of the pandemic, combined with the […]
Learning the lessons from previous recessions – focus on families
One of the small mercies of the Covid-19 pandemic has been how little it has affected children. But our national response has closed the schools, services, and relationships on which they often rely. Vulnerability has been compounded, the poor hardest hit, and new problems have emerged. In the months ahead, to name but a few […]
How we can work with families in poverty
As vulnerable children and their families struggle with isolation, conflict and poverty, we need community infrastructure so that there is no wrong door for them to access the family support they need. The Early Intervention Foundation’s (EIF) new report, Planning early childhood services in 2020, states that ‘it is difficult to think of a more effective […]
Changing the weather: Corona and community
We are all in the same Covid storm, but it is clear we’re in very different boats! It’s a point that is often made. This strange virus is fundamentally unequal in its impact. It has exposed and exaggerated deep inequalities in our society. But our opportunity is not simply to analyse the impact of the […]
Government needs to understand and measure poverty
The Covid-19 pandemic is the most significant crisis of modern times. Since March, we have been bombarded with daily death statistics from this disease. But to focus only on the health implications of Covid-19 obscures its impact on the lives of millions, particularly those on the edge of poverty. We can see with our own […]
Archived Content
Anne Longfield responds to the Government’s announcement on knife crime
Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, responding to the Government’s announcement on knife crime, said: “It is right that knife crime is seen as a public health issue, and that there is a duty put on those whose job it is to keep children safe to do so. “While this is a step forward, […]
Former Home Secretary and member of Children’s Commissioner advisory board Jacqui Smith responds to our vulnerability report
In April we celebrated the first year of the Sandwell Children’s Trust. In 2017, OFSTED found that services for the most vulnerable children and families in Sandwell were inadequate so the Trust was set up to drive improvement. I’m enormously proud of the progress we’re making. OFSTED have praised the grip and leadership of our […]
Childhood vulnerability in England 2019
The Children’s Commissioner’s 2019 childhood vulnerability report examines the latest scale of, and trends over time in, rates of childhood vulnerability. As with last year, we have estimated the total number of children in England currently receiving statutory support or intervention (those who are ‘in the system’). Based on the latest available data, we believe […]
Multi-billion pound tax cut promises from Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt should instead go on mending broken childhoods
Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, has launched her third annual Vulnerability Report.
Children in families at risk – Local area maps
These maps present our projected proportions of children living in households where an adult has any of the so called ‘toxic trio’ factors present, or where multiple factors exist in the same household.
About the data
The data shows the overall levels of vulnerability and need among children and young people in England, published in our annual Vulnerability Report. We’ve spoken with children and young people, as well as organisations who work with children, to help us choose which groups to include and how to describe them. This has led to […]
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Digital 5 a day
Easy to follow, practical steps for children and parents to achieve a healthy and balanced digital diet
The paralysis currently affecting much of Whitehall and Westminster is letting down Children in Need
Anne Longfield responds to the government’s Children in Need review
Universal Credit – “Children are going hungry. It’s not a myth, it’s a fact.”
As Universal Credit rolls out across the country, we have been checking in regularly with a foodbank in an area which is transitioning to UC to see if there has been any noticeable impact on the number of families with children using their services. In our final instalment of this series, Linda, who runs a food bank in a […]
