When systems fail children, we must change the system

I've just been reading the latest child poverty figures, and once again they stop me in my tracks, because no matter how long I’ve worked in and around education, public services and system change, I still can’t get my head around this simple, devastating reality that in 2025 – in one of the richest countries in the world – millions of children are growing up hungry, insecure and overlooked.

So, when the Government published its new Child Poverty Strategy, I felt something that’s been in short supply on this issue: a little flicker of hope. 

Scrapping the two-child limit is welcome news. Expanding free school meals, strengthening childcare support, ending unlawful B&B placements; these aren’t policy tweaks, they’re lifelines.

If delivered, this strategy could lift 550,000 children out of poverty by 2030. That's half a million lives changed, but the sad and shocking thing is, we should never have let things reach this point.

This is exactly why my work at Stone King is increasingly focused on public sector transformation. I am working with clients who succeed despite the system and who tirelessly work to fix the cracks in the systems that are fragmented, target-driven and far too often disconnected from real human lives. It’s why I’ve become drawn to the work of Toby Lowe and the Human Learning Systems (HLS) approach. HLS invites us to imagine public services differently: human, relational, adaptive – built on learning, rather than compliance. It forces us to confront a question we’ve avoided for far too long: What would our systems look like if we actually designed them to help people thrive?

Reading the Government's strategy today, I’m reminded why this work matters so deeply. Behind every stat is a child trying to do homework in a damp temporary room, a parent quietly skipping meals, a baby being discharged to a B&B.

Policy changes can open the door, and this strategy gives real reason for hope, but culture, relationships and systems are what determine whether anyone gets through it.

Lifting half a million children out of poverty would be extraordinary, but even one child left behind will always be one too many.