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A recent report has described children’s services in England as being in a “state of emergency,” highlighting severe and unjust inequalities faced by young people across the country. Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, conducted an extensive review using around 100 different indicators related to health, social care, education, safety, and play. Her findings reveal a striking “postcode lottery,” where the quality of children’s services varies widely depending on location, leading to a series of systemic failures.
The report, titled *The Childhood Lottery*, emphasizes that poverty alone does not account for these disparities. While some deprived areas performed well on several measures, wealthier regions sometimes scored poorly, illustrating that deprivation is not the sole factor at play. Dame Rachel called for establishing a minimum standard of care and support for children nationwide, alongside emergency funding to improve services where critical gaps exist. She admitted that although she had previously resisted focusing solely on funding issues, the scale of the problems now demands urgent financial intervention.
Significant concerns surfaced from the report’s data, including that over one million children were referred to mental health services in 2024-25, and 55% of children failed to meet good standards in GCSE English and maths. Moreover, one million young people aged 16 to 24 in the UK were neither employed nor engaged in education or training, while 12% of children reported feeling unsafe in their local areas. Locations such as Middlesbrough, Hounslow, Bradford, Nottingham, and Liverpool were identified as some of the toughest places to grow up, whereas Cheshire East, Surrey, Richmond upon Thames, and Hertfordshire ranked among the least challenging.
The disparities between different local authorities were particularly stark in key areas. For instance, children in Leicester waited just six days to be referred for mental health assessments, compared to 118 days in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. In Richmond upon Thames, 70% of children achieved good grades in GCSEs, while the figure was only 31% in Knowsley. Feelings of safety also varied widely; only 6.7% of children in Bedford felt unsafe, contrasted with nearly a quarter of children in Croydon. Alarmingly, four councils reported zero spending on youth services per teenager. Differences extended to dental care too, with 86% of children in Redcar and Cleveland having seen a dentist in the last year, compared to just 39% in Hackney.
Dame Rachel’s recommendations included the introduction of mandatory minimum standards for children’s services encompassing education, policing, health, and youth provision. She advocated for “strategic authorities”—larger councils and those with elected mayors—to appoint a deputy mayor for children, tasked with evaluating how every policy affects young people. Additionally, she proposed an emergency fund specifically dedicated to improving children’s services. In response, the prime minister pledged increased investment aimed at supporting young people’s success, emphasizing that the government can no longer perpetuate failure through the welfare system
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