The Our Wellbeing, Our Voice Coalition Welcomes the Bill

The Our Wellbeing, Our Voice Coalition welcomes the publication of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which seeks to address urgent challenges in the children’s social care and schools systems that are preventing young people from thriving and damaging their wellbeing. The Coalition is a group of organisations with expertise in children and young people’s wellbeing, wellbeing measurement, education and wellbeing economics. The challenges facing today’s children are deeply troubling – young people in this country have the lowest wellbeing in Europe. Measures to introduce breakfast clubs, reduce the costs of school through the branded uniform item cap, and to improve support for pupils with special educational needs could potentially have a significant impact on children’s wellbeing and make a meaningful contribution to the Government’s Mission to ‘Break Down Barriers to Opportunity’.

But it doesn’t go far enough...

Whilst the Bill contains many important provisions relating to children, it is not a cohesive offering to improve the wellbeing of all children in this country. The inclusion of national wellbeing measurement would provide both strategic focus and a meaningful framework to understand its impact.

As Lord Gus O’Donnell, Former Cabinet Secretary has said, “How do you have a children’s wellbeing bill without any attempt to measure their wellbeing across the country? There is a lot to welcome in the Bill but this gap is a fundamental flaw.”