New children’s commissioner for England announced
Education secretary Gavin Williamson has announced the next children’s commissioner for England.
Dame Rachel de Souza will take up the role of children’s commissioner for England in March 2021 and replace Anne Longfield who has held the post since 2015.
Gavin Williamson had named Dame de Souza as his preferred candidate and she had a [...]
Round up of the Year 2020
January
Well, what a year it has been. We started off 2020 with reports of the Coronavirus affecting people living in Wuhan in China, but at this point there seemed no real threat to the UK.
WillisPalmer started the year working on our new website and in January we were reporting on Education Policy Institute [...]
Over 250,000 people homeless and living in temporary accommodation
There are more than 250,000 people in England who are homeless and living in temporary accommodation during the COVID-19 pandemic, Shelter has revealed.
Homelessness is rising with 115,000 more people homeless and trapped in temporary accommodation than 10 years ago. The 253,000 people living in temporary accommodation is the highest figure for 14 years.
Polly Neate, [...]
Attendance rates for vulnerable children is lower than for their peers
Just 80 per cent of children with a social worker were in attendance at school last week.
Department for Education statistics shows that approximately 80% of all pupils with a social worker on roll in all state-funded schools were in attendance on 10 December the same as on 3 December and approximately 80% of all [...]
The number of children in care rose before lockdown
The number of looked-after children had risen prior to lockdown starting, Department for Education statistics have confirmed.
There were 80,080 children in care on 31 March – a rise of two per cent on the previous year, the ‘Children looked after in England including adoptions’ figures showed. The first lockdown began in March 2020.
The rate [...]
Improved data on characteristics of offenders of child sexual exploitation needed
Better analysis on the characteristics of offenders of child sexual exploitation such as ethnicity and other factors are required to ensure the factors and context of offending are understood and confronted, a paper published by the Home Secretary has found.
The paper on the characteristics of group-based child sexual exploitation offending make it clear that [...]
