As Children's Commissioner, I want every child to have the chance
to have a happy, healthy childhood. In speaking to children
across the country, I know that where you grow up can have a
profound impact on the opportunities young people have, the
services they can access, and the challenges they
face.
Over the last five and half years, I have spoken with thousands
of children. Whether I am visiting a school, care setting, youth
organisation, hospital or community group, I hear about the
places children call home.
Children are proud of their communities. They talk about the
people who matter to them and their future aspirations. But they
also talk about the challenges they face feeling unsafe in parts
of the community, their struggles to access the support when they
need it and worries about what the future holds.
For too long, these experiences have been seen as isolated
challenges. But children's lives do not work in neat silos. Their
health, education, safety, family circumstances and opportunities
available to them are all interconnected. Where children grow up
shapes every aspect of their lives.
That is why on Monday, I will publish The Childhood
Lottery a landmark dataset bringing together more than 160
measures of children's lives to build the most comprehensive
picture yet of the local factors shaping young lives
today.
My findings confirm what children have been saying: the postcode
lottery they feel is real.
By bringing together research from my office, alongside data from
the Department for Education and 10 other public bodies, The
Childhood Lottery looks beyond services or outcomes. It
examines the wider picture of what it is like to grow up in
different parts of England, revealing how challenges overlap, and
are often compounded.
The differences are stark. Growing up in one area can have a huge
difference in the chances of feeling safe, accessing support,
enjoying opportunities to play or getting the best start in life,
compared to other areas.
Some places have a particularly troubling picture. The challenges
children face are so significant that they amount to a state of
emergency.
I have taken the difficult decision to identify the places where
the data suggests childhood is hardest. The findings are not
intended to label communities or diminish local pride. Nor are
they a performance judgement of individual councils, but simply
an assessment of children's challenges, the services available to
them and the outcomes they experience.
The poor outcomes and serious gaps in support cannot be ignored.
The status quo cannot be accepted, seen as inevitable or allowed
to continue because the challenges are complex.
The challenge is not confined to a handful of places. No area is
consistently performing well across the full range of measures
even places scored higher overall have significant gaps in
support for children, for example, even in the better performing
areas, over 20 per cent of children are not achieving a good
level of development by Reception.
Every community has work to do. Our children deserve
better.
The Childhood Lottery comes at a crucial moment. The government's
programme of devolution is set to transfer power and decision
making to local and regional leaders.
Devolution is a once in a generation opportunity to make public
services more responsive to the needs of children and families.
Local leaders are best placed to understand the needs of their
communities, bringing services together to address
them.
That is why I have set out a test for devolution in The
Childhood Lottery, to ensure children's outcomes are at the
heart of decision making. The proposals I have set out in
tomorrow's report are about making sure the systems work for
children, rather than expecting children to live with the
consequences when it does not.
The Childhood Lottery will give leaders a new way to understand
the realities of childhood today. It will shine a light on where
children face the greatest challenges, while showing there is no
part of the country where we can afford complacency.
I know the publication of the data will not change children's
lives alone. Instead, it matters how we respond: whether national
government acts on the evidence, whether local leaders take
responsibility for children's outcomes, and whether services work
together to deliver the support children need.
The Childhood Lottery is a tool for change, allowing
leaders to understand where childhood is hardest and identifying
what is needed to improve, while learning from places that are
overcoming the odds. Above all, I want the disparities children
have experienced for years to be impossible to ignore going
forward.
Children are rightly proud of where they grow up. They deserve to
live in places that give them every chance to succeed, feel safe
and opportunities to thrive.
Life chances should never be determined by a postcode. As we
reshape how the country is governed, we have the opportunity to
ensure that every decision, every service and every pound works
towards that goal.
