[5] Whilst there she oversaw the huge and rapid expansion of the charity - from employing six people to 1,500 members of staff[4] - and left just before its financial collapse.
[6] Under these main areas of research she has made many public interventions, and published a large number of detailed reports exploring, explaining and advocating various solutions to specific aspects of these subjects.
Longfield stated, “There is a great risk here that the government looks like it’s going back to an outdated… viewpoint which is demonising both single parents but also families claiming benefit, and working mothers.”[11] She has argued for large digital platforms that are used by children to have greater responsibility and response to complaints from child users and has called for legislation in England to tackle perceived reluctance on such platforms to do so.
[15] She has called for greater co-ordination of police, the justice system, NHSE and children's services to tackle gang involvement, violent knife crime and the distribution of illegal drugs known as “county lines”.
[16]” 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.
The arrangement was subsequently cancelled as a result of media attention and the organisation ordered her to repay to HM Treasury £10,000 of misused public funds.