Children's commissioner warns of 'state of emergency' in hardest places to grow up
Services for children in parts of England are in a "state of emergency", the Children's Commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, said on 19 October 2026 with publication of a report ranking the hardest and easiest places to grow up. The Guardian
The report, The Childhood Lottery: The hardest places to grow up in England, named Middlesbrough, Hounslow, Bradford, Nottingham, Halton, Peterborough, Leicester, Liverpool, Sunderland and Medway as the hardest places to be a child. It identified Cheshire East, Merton, Surrey, Richmond upon Thames, Hertfordshire, Cheshire West and Chester, Haringey, Leicestershire, Central Bedfordshire and Wokingham as the least challenging places.
Cheshire East, Merton and Surrey received the highest overall scores, while Middlesbrough, Hounslow and Bradford received the lowest, according to the full report.
The analysis draws on official data covering more than 160 measures, including child poverty, educational outcomes, community safety, NHS waiting times and access to playgrounds. Each local authority received a score of 0 to 10 for each scored metric. The work combines data gathered by the Children's Commissioner with figures from the Department for Education and 10 other public bodies, and includes a dataset and interactive map. Children's Commissioner
The report describes a north-south divide, with authorities in the south more likely to score higher, those in the north more likely to score lower, and the Midlands in between. It found that a third of children nationally were not ready for school at five. It notes that on average about 1,600 children are born in England every day.
De Souza urged the government to set minimum standards for education, policing, health and youth services and to create a national fund to invest in areas that do not meet those benchmarks. She also recommended that every strategic authority have a deputy mayor for children, accountable for applying a "children’s test" to local policies.
