Dame Rachel de Souza's landmark report examines the challenges faced by children across England

Services for children are in a "state of emergency" and young people across England are facing extreme and unfair inequality, a new report says.

Children's Commissioner for England Dame Rachel de Souza has analysed a hundred different metrics including health and social care, education, safety and play, concluding that a "postcode lottery" has resulted in a "litany of failures" affecting children.

Her report found that deprivation alone could not explain the differences in their experiences. Some poorer areas had scored highly in her analysis compared to relatively well-off ones.

Education Secretary Lucy Powell said the government will make sure "no child is held back by where they grow up".

Dame Rachel called for a minimum standard for children's services, and an emergency fund for improvements where needed.

She said she had previously resisted the call to "reduce everything to funding", but the "extent of failure is too great".

In her report, called Childhood Lottery, she wrote that she could not see the status quo as "anything less than a national emergency".

She urged Prime Minister Andy Burnham to give larger local authorities and mayors more of a role in providing better education, health, youth services and policing for children.

More than one million children had been referred to mental health services in 2024-25

55% of children do not achieve a good standard in English and maths GCSEs

A million people in the UK aged 16-24 are not in employment, education or training

12% of children said they did not feel safe in their local area

Dame Rachel told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that one group of children talked to her about seeing knife crime "virtually daily", people urinating on their school and kids not being able to go to the park because it's "so full of crime".

"Now that to me is an emergency... it's an emergency for childhood," she said.

Burnham says youth employment and training crisis is a 'moral failure'

Middlesbrough, Hounslow, Bradford, Nottingham, Halton, Peterborough, Leicester, Liverpool, Sunderland and Medway were ranked the hardest places to grow up in England.

Cheshire East, Merton, Surrey, Richmond upon Thames, Hertfordshire, Cheshire West and Chester, Haringey, Leicestershire, Central Bedfordshire and Wokingham were described as the "least challenging places to be a child".

In some cases the difference in standard was stark.

It took six days for a child to be referred for mental health assessments in Leicester, and 118 days in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

In Richmond upon Thames, 70% of children got good grades in English and maths GCSE compared to 31% in Knowsley.

Just 6.7% of children in Bedford felt unsafe in their local area, compared to 24.9% of children in Croydon.

In four local council areas, spending on youth services per teenager was zero.

86% of Redcar and Cleveland's children saw a dentist in the last year compared to 39% in Hackney, which was among 25 areas where fewer than half of children saw a dentist.

General poverty was not always to blame for poor children's services, the report found, external.

Haringey in North London scored highly in an assessment of its services for children, despite having high levels of deprivation. Conversely Cambridge was ranked lower, even though it was one of the least deprived areas in England.

"There is a poverty issue, but there are also service issues, and capacity issues," Dame Rachel told the BBC.

"What I want to see is rocket-boosted support for these places," she added.

Dame Rachel recommended there should be a minimum set of standards for the way children were affected by levels of education, policing, health, and youth services.

"Strategic authorities", which include areas with mayors, and larger local councils, should be required to have a deputy mayor for children with responsibility for testing every policy to assess its impact, she said.

A children's emergency fund should be set up to pay for improvements in services, she added.

In a separate article for the Times, external on Monday, the prime minister promised more investment in "the success of our young people" and said the government could no longer support their "failure through the benefits system."

The Department for Education said it's working to improve childcare support and school standards, and is giving more power to "local leaders" to shape the future of their education.

"We're investing and reforming at every stage of a child's journey, from more childcare support for their earliest years and higher standards in our schools, broader community support with the rollover of our National Youth strategy and Young Future hubs, to more training and job opportunities as they approach adulthood," it said in a statement.

The government said it is opening 1,000 Best Start Family Hubs in England, which offers joined-up support for parents and children, including health, education and advice services.

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