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New stats from @ChildrensComm presented in Anne Longfield's final speech. Echoes @mssophiaparker's remarks last week that this isn't unresolvable. "It's not that we can't do it, that we don't know what works. It's that we haven't set out to do it." #buildingbackbetter
Longfield describes the "basic flaw in how government operates". Different departments look at different elements of children's lives, but "nobody connects the dots". Wants "a government that makes a basic commitment to improving children's lives". #buildingbackbetter
"I'm fed up with hearing 'we don't know' from people whose job it is to know." Longfield excoriating on siloed thinking: "what government seems unable to understand is that children can be many or all of these things at the same times".
Notes that the Treasury acts "as if spending on early years or mental health isn't an investment in the future" and that gov counts "costs and benefits in ways that consistently discriminates against vulnerable families". Shows "an institutional bias against children".
Remarks on quality of data @ChildrensComm team have produced- best data that exists about childhood vulnerability in England. "Ideally I'd like to think that gov should do this. At the least, it should be biting my hand off to use it... I've had to cajole people to the table."
Longfield could not have been stronger in her criticism of gov policy here. It's a damning assessment of a gov that seems to lack the moral imperative (and, therefore, the practical will/ambition) to improve the lives of its citizens. She will be sorely missed. #buildbackbetter
Louise Casey: "pre the pandemic we were already looking at a grim situation". £16bn taken out of local gov spending. Osborne's reforms meant £29bn removed from personal welfare benefits, taking some back to 1990 rates.
Casey notes we've all have been affected by the pandemic, but "the difference is that some of us are in boats that are getting through the storm. Some of us are in rafts that are sinking." Pandemic has turned cracks in the system "into absolute chasms".
"The numbers we are talking about - the numbers of families and children - are simply too big." 6m people now on UC. 2m on legacy benefits. 4m furloughed. 18-25% of the population affected adversely economically by the pandemic. "And those are only the people that we count."
Casey pauses when talking about food banks. "Food relief. *Food relief*. In the United Kingdom in 2021. That is not a sentence I should be reading."
Casey's hope is that the sheer numbers mean "we have to move through this together... That is the ambition I want from my government. That's the ambition we had after the second world war... Adversity on such a scale that we have to think big. Not a Tsar here, a fund there. No."
"We just need to all get our heads around the fact, including colleagues in DfE, that if a child is in need, so is their family... Practice, delivery, funding has to look at both... The bedrock of this is poverty, and that is something we can do something about."
Casey concludes: "The time has come... The legacy of this pandemic *could* be that we have a driving obsession to help those affected by poverty and discrimination." Says Longfield has stood up "without fear or favour" for the rights and lives of children and young people.
Qs from children's panel. Many on mental health - Qs on depression, Tourettes, SEN support and how this will affect their exams. Longfield lays out the support needed and concludes with "where there's a will there's a way". All possible once the political will is there.
Next Qs on housing. (I want to note here that these are primary school children asking the basic Qs gov seems unable to grapple with.) Casey: 130,000 children in b&bs and temporary accommodation pre-pandemic. "Got to look at the big picture, because it looks really grim."
Robert Halfon notes school closures have exposed the gap between those in secure housing ("professional classes have done ok with houses and gardens"), while 1m people are in overcrowded accommodation.
Longfield describing a "covid covenant" -year of opportunity for children and young people to acknowledge how hard 20/21 has been and the investment to kick-start recovery. Taking us back to "an Olympics moment" of possibility. Casey notes importance of reciprocity, universality.
Last word from Halfon on Longfield's work and her ceaseless championing of young people from all backgrounds. There's a montage of messages coming which I'm 100% going to cry at.
I didn't intend to live tweet all of that, but it was so full of provocation and anger and optimism and hope. The slides and full speech can be found here: https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/2021/02/17/building-back-better-reaching-englands-left-behind-children/
