Data-gathering ‘machine’ defines commissioner’s long-term legacy

For the past few years, it has seemed like there has been a production line of reports and in-depth policy briefings on key issues and challenges facing children and young people coming out of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England. This year alone, there have been publications on children in the youth justice system, routes to citizenship, child poverty, children’s mental health, the children’s social care system and youth violence. This prolific output is the result of years of work to build the architecture of the commissioner’s office and is arguably the key legacy of Anne Longfield’s tenure as she steps down from the post at the end of February following the completion of her six-year term.

She hands over to her successor Dame Rachel de Souza with the commissioner’s role and office being held in high standing by politicians, campaigners and sector experts (see expert views). However, a glance back at coverage from 2014 shows she was not a universally popular appointment, with one childcare campaigner launching a petition over a perceived lack of independence. A few months into post she had to justify the rehiring of a former deputy commissioner on £1,000 a day consultancy contract, while in 2016 defended her record at 4Children, the charity she ran before taking up the commissioner role, which collapsed into administration.

Speaking to CYP Now, Longfield says a “big moment” was to recruit in July 2016 Leon Feinstein as director of evidence from the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) and task him with creating a repository of information and data about vulnerable children in England.

“I’d helped set up the EIF and recruited Leon there,” she says. “We’d talked about how you measure vulnerable kids and what outcomes there are. I just knew he’d ‘get it’ and he’d be a visible sign this was serious.”

Longfield said civil servants were surprised she could afford Feinstein, not realising it was about “a mission we’d been talking about for 20 years and he thought we could achieve it”.

Five-year mission

Being able to sell a five-year mission to talented staff like Feinstein and Alice Miles, director of strategy and policy, is “what I’ve been able to do”, she explains, adding the “vulnerability work we’ve done I’m so proud of”.

“What we now have is essentially a free online resource that sets out how many vulnerable kids there are, what the indicators are on vulnerability and the nature of that by local authority area,” she explains. “It is cross-referenced, checked and compared and is now put into constituency area so every MP can go online and check the situation.”

The vulnerability data has shone a light on what Longfield calls “invisible kids, those no one sees”. She uses the example of children in gangs to illustrate how it digs beneath the surface of an issue: “You can then say it’s not just about those in gangs but the siblings and friends of gang members, and victims of crime who know gang members. You can start to piece together things in a much more rounded way that is reflective of children’s lives.”

This approach to evidence gathering has become “what we base all out reports on”, says Longfield adding that it has also enabled her to show “in policy and data terms” how the same children crop up in different groups of vulnerability.

“Building a machine” that exposes the extent of children’s vulnerability and explains the factors driving that is one of her biggest achievements as commissioner, she adds.

“It has taken four years to get where we are now which is why over the last few years we’ve been able to harvest this data and be more impactful because our evidence base has been stronger,” she says. “What I said wasn’t just what I believe but was backed up by the data.”

A lot of the data existed already but was often raw and needed analysing, explains Longfield, and some wasn’t routinely shared across different government departments.

“It was easier to get that data because my powers are in law,” she adds. “The two powers that you are given in the commissioner’s kit bag is a power of entry, so you can go wherever kids are, and to gather data.”

The rising volume and impact of her work has got the attention of policymakers. Last year, she gave evidence at around a dozen parliamentary select committee hearings and was one of the first voices to call for children’s right to education to be prioritised by the government following the first national lockdown.

“That moment in May when kids were going to go back to school and it didn’t happen shocked me,” she says. “It felt that people were squabbling and kids were getting lost in the middle.

“This time, politicians want schools to be the first to open and last to close. Now, that’s become the mantra, which I’m very pleased about.

“For this role, the test was can you put the views of children high enough on the agenda.”

Holding power to account

Over the past year, Longfield has also challenged the government over its lack of action on child poverty, on its initial decision not to fund free school meals during holidays and the need to prioritise frontline children’s workers to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, quashing initial concerns she would not hold power to account.

“I’ve tried not to be completely oppositional, but I have got to a stage where I carry quite a lot of public weight and have used that on behalf of kids.

“I believe those in public office genuinely want the best for kids but I also think they want to know if things aren’t happening well so they can fix them.”

The individual nature of the role means the new commissioner will be able to “shape it” based on her priorities, but Longfield expects rising levels of poverty will be a defining issue.

She doesn’t give too much away over her own future, except to say she wants to help improve outcomes for “teenagers that end up in the worst positions: in gangs, prison, unregulated care, or secure settings” and for whom the system of support is currently failing. “They tell me it didn’t need to be like this,” she says. “They fall through the gaps and end up costing the government so much money. I don’t want people to give up on those kids.”

LONGFIELD’S LEGACY
EXPERTS FROM POLITICS, PUBLIC POLICY AND THE CHARITY SECTOR GIVE THEIR ASSESSMENT

Tim Loughton MP, chair of the APPG on children and young people:

Anne Longfield is going to be a very hard act to follow. Above all, Anne’s tenure as commissioner has been marked by strengthening and legitimising a role which had at times been called into question under her predecessors.

She has expanded her remit and its volume into new areas culminating in the very high-profile role she has played in calling out the considerable long-term damage being done to school-age children during lockdown and the mental health of a whole generation.

When first appointed, Anne described the role as “being the eyes and ears of children within the system” but she has turned out to be a very loud and effective voice for them too.

Crucially much of her work has focussed on the plight of children and young people off the grid, on the edges of care, in the youth justice system, in the murky world that has given rise to county lines and in the failure of truly grasping joined up early intervention as the main tool to prevent them ending up there.

Over many years, Anne has always been a great source of wise advice for me and a campaigning ally, for which I will always be grateful.

Dr Jo Casebourne, chief executive, Early Intervention Foundation:

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner has published so many excellent and impactful reports, but the one that stands out most for us is the 2019 report on childhood vulnerability in England. This estimated the number of vulnerable children, a key fact that we should know, but shockingly, didn’t.

Responsibility for children, young people and families is currently fragmented across multiple government departments and agencies, which can mean vulnerable children are not seen as a group in the round. We need to know how many vulnerable children there are to ensure that the most vulnerable get the services they need and that services are funded properly to meet these needs.

What Anne has done is to use the power of data to quantify the problems children and our society face. This commitment to using data and evidence has made her arguments for more focus on the most vulnerable children very powerful and hard to dispute.

We hope that Dame Rachel de Souza will continue this forensic focus on what the evidence tells us about where government must prioritise as she takes on the role of championing vulnerable children.

Robert Halfon MP, chair of the education select committee:

Every child and their family in the country would be comforted in the knowledge that Anne Longfield was representing and standing up for them as children’s commissioner for England. They have had a true ambassador, a champion and a campaigner on their side.

Throughout her term, Anne has been counter-intuitive, she has challenged the status quo and she has campaigned with vigour for children to get back to learning in the classroom. The children’s commissioner has not been afraid to challenge existing conventions or the establishment – whatever their political background. Her work on exclusions, for example, support for children with special educational needs and disabilities and looked-after children has been relentless.

I think that Anne is one of the few that has always been ready to stand up and be counted during this pandemic, in terms of speaking out about the damage of school closures to children’s learning, mental health, wellbeing and safeguarding.

I hope that whatever Anne goes on to do, she will continue to champion the needs of our young people, because without her commitment, campaigning skills and knowledge, there will be some very big shoes to fill.

Vic Langer, interim chief executive, Become:

The children’s commissioner role has a specific responsibility for children in care – Anne Longfield took this responsibility seriously and upheld it through research and direct support activity, including the relaunch of the Help at Hand service in 2016 and the IMO website in 2018.

Anne also supported Become and other organisations in the voluntary sector in advocating for a review of the care system and challenging the government’s plans when they threatened children’s rights, including sharing the key messages of the Keep Caring to 18 campaign on the government’s proposals on unregulated accommodation.

Anne’s recognition and amplification around the systemic failures of the care system and its impact on children in care has been a valuable contribution to the care-experienced community. This can be seen in the work produced by the commissioner’s office, which has placed the lived experience and voices of children in care at its heart.

As children’s commissioner Anne has been a significant and influential ally for children in care and young care leavers, demonstrating recognition and respect which we hope to see continue as a cornerstone of the post.