This year’s The Children's Society Good Childhood Report reveals that too many young people are unhappy with their lives. 10% of the children aged 10 to 17 who completed our household survey in May and June 2023 had low wellbeing, and almost a third were unhappy with at least one specific area of their lives. This is unacceptable. The Government must act now to protect every childhood.

One quarter of young people now turn to social media for financial guidance 25% of 18-24 year old banking customers use social media for financial guidance; One in five (20%) of this age group have invested money based on social media recommendations; Yet, 33% of this age group are not confident in their financial knowledge to take out investment products. More young people are turning to social media rather than their bank for financial guidance, according to new research from Deloitte.

The purpose of this research has been to work with local authorities and their partners to understand the key enablers and barriers to sustained improvement in Children’s Services. This is an opportunity to refresh and build upon the research undertaken by Isos Partnership for the LGA on this topic in 2016.1 This research is based on interviews with national stakeholders; local fieldwork engagements in nine participating local areas that had improved children’s services or sustained strong performance over several years; and two online action-learning workshops with representatives from the nine participating local authorities to test and refine the findings of the research.

The Metropolitan police are failing in their efforts to protect children from criminal and sexual exploitation while bungling efforts to find missing young people, a damning official report has found.