In Other News · United Kingdom

Source: The Guardian UK

Dame Rachel de Souza’s has called the disparities of experiences between young children in England ‘staggering’ Good morning. Children and young people are at the top of the agenda today, with the publication of a hard-hitting report from Dame Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, and a Times article by Andy Burnham. They are focusing on slightly different cohorts – Burnham is writing about young people who leave school and enter the benefits system, while the de Souza reports covers the experiences of young children in multiple aspects of their lives – but their overall message is the same: the younger generation is being let down.De Souza has studied more than 160 datasets to examine how what happens to children as they grow up varies across England and she says the variation is “staggering”. In her report, The Childhood Lottery, she explains:In four local authorities, the total amount spent on youth services per teenager is the princely sum of £0, £421 less than in the highest spending local authority. Some areas of the country are sending nearly 90% of their looked after children to out-of-area placements, compared to the almost 20% in the areas making least use of...