Anne Elizabeth Longfield is the Children's Commissioner for England. She was formerly chief executive of the charity 4Children. She was appointed the Children's Commissioner for England in March 2015. The role is to bring about long term change and improvements for all children, and in particular the most vulnerable, with a special focus on those in care. She has powers of data collection under section 2f of The Children's Act. These powers were added to the office from the original 2004 act which established the Children's Commissioner's role. In 2015, shortly after starting her new role as children's Commissioner, Longfield was criticised for removing her Deputy, Sue Berelowitz, with an enhanced severance package, and then immediately hiring her back as a consultant. It transpired that this had taken place without securing the required approval from government ministers and was therefore an abuse of her powers. The arrangement was subsequently cancelled as a result of media attention and the organisation ordered to repay to HM Treasury £10,000 of misused public funds. In recent years Longfield has developed a number of high profile and successful campaigns and policies surrounding children's mental health, vulnerable children and children growing up in the digital world. She also established Help at Hand, a helpline for children in care that has helped a thousand children every year.
Views
Longfield is concerned about the effect of benefit cuts on vulnerable children in low income families. Longfield stated that universal credit and wider welfare reforms disproportionately affect single parents. Longfield stated, “There is a great risk here that the government looks like it’s going back to an outdated… viewpoint which is demonising both single parents but also families claiming benefit, and working mothers.” Longfield also believes that face-to-face education is more important than the health of a child’s family. Primarily, during the Covid-19 pandemic, she stated that delaying schools reopening would disadvantage children despite a risk that reopening schools would lead to a further spread of the virus.
