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The Play Commission final report was published and launched on the second International Day of Play, June 11th 2025. It sets out a strong, evidenced case for:
As one of 19 expert Commissioners, we are proud to have been part of helping to steer and contribute to this year- long work. The report really tells it how it is for children and families in this country and does not shy away from calling for the changes that are needed. We will write more about this soon. For now, you can read the full report here . And catch up on the background and process of the Play Commission below.
Launched on the first International Day of Play, June 11th 2024, the new national Play Commission for England is an important year long process co-led by former Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield CBE and the Centre for Young Lives with social entrepreneur Paul Lindley (Raising the Nation). The Commission aims to ‘develop a national play plan to shape future government policy’ and ‘make play a central part of childhood again’. Read the latest update from the Commission.
Playing Out Co-Director Ingrid Skeels, independent scholar and writer on children’s outdoor play and mobility Tim Gill and Play England CEO Eugene Minogue are amongst the 20 independent Commissioners sitting on the panel to contribute and advise throughout.
Big picture, the new government must put the needs of children first if it is to improve their health, wellbeing and opportunities to thrive. “For many years both before and since the pandemic there has been a large hole marked ‘children’ at the heart of government’s vision for Britain. It is now the task of this new Government to fill it.” – Jo Green, co-founder of the Centre for Young Lives.
The Play Commission aims to call on and help the new Labour government do just this in the area of play. Play is so central to thriving childhoods that it should also be central to political decision making. However, as co-Chair Paul Lindley sets out, the opposite has happened:
“In the last decade or more the opportunities and spaces for children to play have been decimated. Over 800 playgrounds have closed, along with more than half of all youth centres and nearly every Sure Start Centre. School playing fields have been sold off and, through policies encouraging the use of private cars, streets feel less safe for children to play. Secondary schools have also reduced break time by over an hour each week, whilst opportunities to train teachers to use the tool of play in lessons, as the Danish government has done, have been missed…”
As we know, all this has serious consequences for children’s lives – for their wellbeing right now and for their future potential. It has hugely contributed to the current crises in their physical and mental health, with the poorest children impacted the most and health inequalities further deepened.
“This own goal in policy decision making, and the unforgivable absence of vision for optimising opportunities to play, isn’t being talked about. That is why we have created the Raising the Nation Play Commission: to stimulate a conversation, gather evidence, demand barriers to play are broken down and to offer a framework for government to create an environment, facilities, time and a culture for children to do their work – and play.”
“Our Commission will invite experts to share ideas and offer evidence. Our work will include listening to children and families and highlighting small scale projects, visiting international pioneering programmes and making the case for why children’s play is critical to our country’s success.
When we report, we will propose a framework to deliver a National Play Strategy. We will also investigate whether an effective and enforceable right to play exists in law in England & Wales and explore a right for families to sue developers who build housing without adequate spaces for children’s play. The voice of parents will be crucial, and we will call on them to come forward with their own experiences of barriers to play.
We will deliver our findings, and a plan for the Government to consider, on 11 June 2025 – the second International Day of Play.
We invite your contributions, ideas, energy and support!”
In order to make the most of this chance to put the case for play to the new government, we need to help ensure that the Play Commission gets it right, and then that the government actually does something about it. Both of these things will take our collective participation – evidence, ideas, input, challenges and suggestions.
The first stage – the open call for evidence – closed at the end of October. Playing Out’s evidence – focussing largely on children’s freedom to play outside and get around where they live – has been submitted. And through this, all the thousands of parent voices and experiences we have heard about in our 15 years, as well as those of the residents, community organisations, councils and others we have worked with so closely to help children play out. You can read our evidence here. All the evidence submitted to the 2024 Inquiry on children and the built environment is also being taken into account.
Oral evidence sessions have also been underway since September around six themes: time to play; learning and play; places to play; digital play; right to play; parents and play. These sessions will continue well into 2025.
The interim report was launched on February 24th at the House of Commons and the final report will be launched on 11th June, calling for Government to develop a new National Play Strategy.
We are helping to advise and support the Commission as it develops. If you have any questions or feedback for the Commission you can get in touch with them directly by email: [email protected] or email [email protected] as the Playing Out Commissioner on the panel.
We look forward to updating here on progress.
Windmill Hill City Farm
Philip Street
Bristol
BS3 4EA
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