The low hanging fruit for improving children’s lives — including their educational outcomes — is now in other services. When I worked (briefly) as a teacher it felt obvious to me that the impact I could have in the classroom was hugely limited by what went on in children’s lives…

Two weeks off for new dads isn’t enough and is bad for everyone else Exactly two weeks after I went into hospital with my heavily pregnant wife, a doctor told us we could finally take our son home. Even after two weeks, that felt tentative. …

The strip of green space between Streatham and Brixton should be joined up to create a new 1 mile long park in Central London If you look at a map of South London, between Brixton and Streatham, there is a strip of green space that runs more or less unbroken…

One of the more depressing events in British policy making is when people use the planning system to oppose creating new homes for looked after children. That is one of many failures of local policy making and localised children’s services specifically. …

The most important question the government can’t answer Boris Johnson’s refusal to say whether he could live on Universal Credit is a symptom of a bigger problem — the government can’t answer the biggest question it faces — how much is enough to live on? A £250 billion question For…

Josh MacAlister’s Case for Change is right to argue that too many children don’t get the help they need before their problems turn into crises. Yet everyone agrees that early intervention is better than late intervention. In practice, we’re still waiting for children to suffer harm before giving them the…

Our data shows how people in debt are struggling to make ends meet — Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, 40% of the people Citizens Advice have helped with debt have had a negative budget — meaning their income doesn’t cover basic living costs. That’s up from 37% last year. The financial impact of coronavirus on the people we help with debt is…

These innovative services need to work for everyone Every year, customers who are loyal to their essential service providers lose over £900 — effectively a ‘loyalty penalty’. Last year we made a super complaint — our first in 7 years — to help put an end to that. The competition…

Only independent regulation will clean up the industry — We helped 41,000 people last year who were struggling with problems caused by bailiffs. As part of the Taking Control campaign we’re calling on the government to introduce independent regulation of the sector. Here are 4 things they need to do. 1. Recognise the damage caused by bad bailiff debt collection The problems caused by bailiffs aren’t new. We’ve called…